T.113RARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 


d/Jccessions  No 

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Received  October,  i8g4. 
.^?Y^/V.      Class  No. 


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ALL  FOR  JESUS: 


®it  dtasj  Hags  of  §M\u  fck. 


BT 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  FABER,  D.  D. 

Author  of  "All  for  Jetu*,"  "The  Slefeed  SaeramMt,"  "Orovth  in  Uolinet*,* 

"Crtator  and  Creature,"  "foot  of  the  Crou,"  "Precious  Stood," 

"^ritual  Conferences,"  "Bethlehtm,"  ^e.  ic.  ^e. 


XlaiJa;  aycipov, 
AivEiv  ayiioi, 
*Xni>eXv  d66\cos, 
'Xkokois  arrdftaatv, 
HaiSiov  ijy^Tofia  KpiarSv. 

Clemens.  Aixx. 

Puhitshtd  vyith  the  Sanction  and  Correaions  of  the  Author. 


SIXTEENTH  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


BALTIMORE: 
PUBLISHED   BY  JOHN   MURPHY  &  CO. 

182   BALTIMORK    STRKKT. 
PITTSBURG:— GEORGE    QUIGLEY. 

Sold  by  Catholic  Boolsellers  generally. 


TJFI7BRSIT7] 


We  approve  hig-hly  of  the  re- 
puhliaation  of  the  work  styled 
"Jill  for  Jesus/'  by  the  I^ev. 
F.  W.  Faher,  -which  has  been 
received  so  favorably  by  the  Ca- 
tholics of  England. 

>i<  FKANCIS  PATKICK. 
Archbishop  of  Baltimore. 
Baltimoue,  20  January,  1854, 


TO  THE 

Irtqweuttrs  at  i\t  ®rat0rj 

OF  ST.  PHILIP  NERI, 
IN  KINO  WILLIAM  STREET.  CUARING  CROSS.  LONDON. 


My  dear  Friends  and  Benefactors, 

I  venture  to  dedicate  this  little  Book  to  you,  for  more  reasons  than 
one.  I  would  have  it  stand  as  a  memorial  of  my  gratitude  for  all  the 
affectionate  intercourse  which  you  have  permitted  to  exist  between  the 
sons  of  St.  Philip  and  yourselves;  an  intercourse  which  has  been 
bound  up  with  the  dearest,  because  the  most  sacred,  interests  of  your 
lives.  For  four  years  and  more  you  have  made  our  cause  your  own. 
and  have  rejoiced  in  our  successes,  and  been  anxious  in  our  anxieties, 
as  if  they  had  been  yours ;  while  on  our  side,  your  griefs  and  cares, 
your  sorrows  and  trials,  j'ou  well  know,  have  been  taken  upon  our- 
selves, according  to  the  poor  measure  of  our  love,  and  lightened,  so  far 
as  heart  can  lighten  heart  in  Cbiist. 

Sacraments,  and  prayer,  and  the  daily  word  of  God,  have  formed  the 
triple  cord  which  has  bound  us  together,  until  we  have  almost  come  to 
think  and  feel,  to  sorrow  and  rejoice,  to  hope  and  fear  alike,  in  the  one 
heavenly  heart  of  our  common  father,  St.  Philip.  We  have  all  along 
known  that  this  could  be  only  for  a  season.  Like  the  apostle  of  the 
Gentiles  at  Rome,  we  were  but  as  prisoners  in  a  hired  house,  and  our 
blessed  Ix)rd  in  His  great  Sacrament  humbled,  not  beyond  the  depth  of 
His  condescension,  but*  beyond  the  patience  of  our  love.  But  the  cir- 
sumstances  of  this  immense  city  do  not  leave  to  Catholic  communities 
full  liberty  to  select  their  own  abode  or  His.  Many  efforts  were  made 
for  as  much  as  two  years  to  find  a  home  for  our  saint  near  the  field  of 
his  first  labours ;  and  when,  after  repeated  failure  and  inquiry,  they 
seemed  all  but  successful,  they  came  to  nought,  we  must  believe,  by 
the  Will  of  God :  and  we  have  been  borne  away  to  another  region  of 
this  peopled  wilderness. 

Thus  there  is  another  motive  for  my  dedicating  this  little  book  to 
you.  It  is,  so  far  as  many  of  you  are  concerned,  a  leave-taking ;  and  I 
1*  5 


6  DEDICATION. 


would  have  it,  not  merely  a  token  of  our  mutual  love,  but  also  the 
odour  of  Christ  and  the  virtue  of  His  blessing.  You  will  find  in  ita 
pages  many  things  which  have  been  said  to  you  so  often,  that  you  hare 
smiled  at  their  repetition.  You  will  read  here  the  sweet  thoughts 
and  words  about  Jesus  and  Mary,  which  we  have  stolen  from  tho 
saints,  and  meditated  on  together.  There  is  many  a  line  will  be  as  old 
to  you  as  the  burden  of  a  favourite  song,  or  the  tune  of  an  Oratory 
hymn.  In  after  times,  if  these  things  are  worth  remembering,  they 
will  bring  back  to  you  the  home-like,  familiar  aspect  of  the  work-worn 
chapel,  with  its  crowded  altar,  and  its  rampart  of  confessionals  round 
about  our  Lord  and  His  little  Sion,  with  its  gay  shrine  of  our  Immacu- 
late Mother,  its  pale-faced  St.  Philip  with  the  Infant  Saviour,  and  its 
life-like  Crucifix,  that  was  hardly  ever  without  a  knceler  at  its  feet. 
Words  and  expressions,  anecdotes  and  texts,  will  one  day  have  a  value 
both  to  you  and  me,  because  of  the  remembrances  they  will  awaken  in 
our  souls :  and  God  perhaps  may  mercifully  allow  the  heat  and  life  of 
grace  to  linger  about  them,  and  touch  us  with  unworldly  love.  1 
could  say  much  more ;  for  gratitude  has  a  faithful  memory  and  a  fluent 
tongue :  yet  more  might  seem  but  like  self-praise,  and  to  you  who 
know  us  is  not  needed. 

"NA'e  have  learned  to  love  Jesus  together.  We  have  taught  each  other, 
helped  each  other.  Every  month  that  went  by,  every  feast,  novena, 
octave,  triduo,  with  its  lectures,  prayers,  and  hymns,  little  by  little 
quickened  our  love  of  our  sweet  Lord.  So  let  us  pray  for  each  other 
now,  that  through  all  changes  and  all  separations  we  may  keep  fast  to 
Him;  and  that  what  we  have  tried  to  be  in  the  dear  old  Oratory,  we 
may  become,  here  and  hereafter,  more  and  more  completely, — All  for 
Jesus,  who  is  Himself  our  All! 


FRED.  W.  FABER, 

CONQ.  ORAT. 


FtaM  of  St.  Anthony  of  Padua, 
18U. 


JPrtfircL 


In  offering  this  little  treatise  to  the  public,  two  things  alone  seem  to 
coll  for  explanation.  1,  I  speak  cor^tinually  of  the  Confraternity  of 
the  Precious  Blood.  This  is  because  the  work  was  intended  as  a  sort 
of  spiritual  manual  for  the  members,  not  because  it  is  not  equally 
suited  for  all  devout  Catholics.  2.  While  I  trust  to  the  charity  of  my 
readers  to  interpret  me  in  all  doubtful  or  obscure  passages,  as  meaning 
only  what  approved  writers  mean,  I  would  especially  guard  myself 
against  one  misapprehension.  It  may  be  said,  "All  these  practices 
and  devotions  have  to  do  with  mere  AfiFective  Love,  not  Effective ;"  and 
it  may  therefore  be  supposed  that  I  would  have  people  stop  at  the  one 
without  going  on  to  the  other.  Of  course,  the  perfection  of  love  is  to 
be  effective,  and  eflfective  love  consists  only  in  self-abnegation.  Thera 
is  no  high  sanctity  short  of  this.  But  it  is  not  the  subject  I  am  treat- 
ing of.  I  am  not  putting  forward  what  is  perfect,  but  what  is  easy.  I 
am  not  trying  to  guide  souls  in  high  spirituality ;  God  forbid  I  should 
be  so  foolish  or  so  vain !  As  a  son  of  St.  Philip  I  have  especially  to  do 
with  the  world,  and  with  people  living  in  the  world  and  trying  to  be 
good  there,  and  to  sanctify  themselves  in  ordinary  vo.'fttions.  It  is  to 
Buch  I  speak;  and  I  am  putting  before  them,  not  high  things,  but 
things  which  are  at  once  attractive  as  devotions,  and  also  tend  to  rais» 
their  fervour,  to  quicken  their  love,  and  to  increase  their  sensible 
sweetness  in  practical  religion  and  its  duties.  I  want  to  r  'jike  piety 
bright  and  happy  to  those  who  need  such  helps,  as  I  do  myserf.  I  have 
not  ventured  to  aim  higher.  If  it  causes  one  heart  to  love  our  dearest 
Lord  a  trifle  more  warmly,  God  will  have  blessed  both  the  work  and  its 
writer  far  above  their  deservingB. 


St.  Mary's,  Sydenham  BUI 
St.  Philip  Neri's  Day,  1853, 


U 


fxtfm  k  i\)t  Stmxi  €h\im. 


A  LARGE  edition  of  the  book  having  sold  ofif  in  about  a  month  from 
its  first  publication,  I  have  taken  considerable  pains  in  preparing  this 
eecond  edition,  and  I  have  endeavoured  to  guide  myself  in  doing  so  by 
the  valuable  criticism  with  which  I  have  been  favoured.  In  thanking 
both  friends  and  strangers  for  them,  I  wish  most  particularly  to 
acknowledge  my  obligations  to  the  Bishop  of  Birmingham  for  his  great 
kindness  to  me  in  this  respect.  May  I  venture  to  use  this  opportunity 
to  thank  him  for  the  same  considerate  kindness,  I  had  better  say 
indulgence,  on  other  occasions  also,  when  he  has  turned  from  his  mul- 
tifarious apostolic  toils,  to  mingle  with  discerning  criticism  and  wise 
suggestion  such  words  of  affectionate  encouragement  as  he  well  knew  a 
convert  author  might  require,  and  whose  full  value  to  cheer  him,  as 
well  as  to  keep  him  humble,  a  convert  more  than  others  would  sensi- 
tively appreciate?  In  again  trusting  my  little  work  to  the  Catholics  ol 
England  and  Ireland,  I  wish  I  could  say  how  much  I  have  been  affected 
by  the  reception  it  has  met  with,  not  as  if  it  reflected  credit  on  myself, 
but  because  it  has  shown  that  the  Name  of  Jesus  could  not  be  uttered 
without  the  echo  coming,  and  that  to  speak  of  Him,  however  poorly, 
was  to  rouse,  to  soothe,  and  to  win  the  heart ;  and  it  was  more  gratefuJ 
to  me  than  any  praise,  to  feel  that  my  subject  was  my  success. 


7^e  Oratory,  King  WiUiam  Stre(<, 
Feast  o/th«  Holg  NatM  of  Mary,  18&J. 


IJSriVSRSITT] 

€Mt  of  C0itkts. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE   INTERESTS   OF  JESUS. 


PAfA 

Jesus  all  for  us— and  all  for  love — His  interests  the  object  of  the 
Confraternity  of  the  Precious  Blood— men's  interests — the  deTil'a 
interests — the  interests  of  Jesus  in  1.  the  Church  triumphant— 

2.  the  Church  suffering — 3.  the  Church  militant — the  four  chief 
ones— 1.  the  glory  of  His  Father— 2.  the  fruit  of  His  Passion— 

3.  the  honour  of  His  Mother — 4.  the  esteem  of  grace — do  not  fol- 
low the  same  rule  as  the  interests  of  the  world— not  to  look  for 
visible  results — sprayer  the  chief  way  of  forwarding  them     ...    19 


CHAPTER  II. 

SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 

Service  of  love — sympathy  with  Jesus  a  mark  of  a  saint — three  in- 
stincts of  saints — 1.  eagerness  for  the  glory  of  God — 2.  touchi- 
ness about  the  interests  of  Jesus — 3.  anxiety  for  the  salvation  of 
souls — story  of  St.  Giacinta  Mariscotti— example  of  the  three  in- 
stincts in  a  Spanish  Jesuit — the  six  advantages  of  giving  away 
our  indulgences  to  the  souls  in  purgatory 41 


10  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

LOVE    WOUNDED    BY   SIN. 

PAG  I 

God  our  Father  as  well  as  our  Creator — this  brings  us  to  love  of 
complacency — and  so  to  love  of  condolence — sorrow  for  other 
men's  sins — various  revelations  to  the  saints  about  this — special 
oflBce  of  nuns — examples  of  the  saints — methods  of  practising 
this  sorrow— 1.  meditation  on  God's  glory— 2.  St.  Bernard's  way — 
3.  way  of  Bnlthasar  Alvarez  and  St.  Alphonso — how  the  three  in- 
stincts are  satisfied  in  this  devotion— St.  Paphnutius  and  the 
piper — Lancisius  on  the  Carnival — St.  Gertrude's  vision — the 
plain  English  of  the  lives  of  most  Catholics — God's  homeless 
glory 69 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IXTERCESSOUY    PRAYER. 

What  goes  to  the  saving  of  a  soul— what  is  involved  in  a  soul  being 
saved — the  mystery  of  prayer — St.  Gertrude's  vision  of  the  Ave 
Maria — the  three  instincts  applied  to  the  practice  of  intercessory 
prayer — for  whom  we  should  intercede — 1.  for  those  in  mortal 
sin — 2.  for  the  lukewarm — 3.  for  the  saints  on  earth — 4.  for  those 
in  tribulation — 5.  for  our  benefactors — 6.  for  those  aiming  at  per- 
fection— 7.  for  the  increase  of  the  accidental  glory  of  the  blessed 
— 8.  for  the  rich  and  noble — the  time,  place,  and  method  of  inter- 
cession—joy  and  freedom  from  vain-glory  the  fruits  of  interces- 
sory prayer, 110 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    RICHES    OP   OUR   POVERTY. 

Our  distress  because  we  love  God  so  little — the  ways  in  which  He 
helps  us  to  love  Ilim — more  especially  in  the  way  of  intercession 
— the  riches  He  gives  us  to  offer  to  Ilim — 1 .  the  Sacred  Humanity 
of  JesuR — 2.  the  intercessory  use  of  the  Passion — various  exaio- 


'contents.  11 


PAOK 

pies  of  the  saints— 3.  our  B.  Lady— nature  of  devotion  to 
her — devotion  to  her  Seven  Joys— 4.  the  angels— 5,  all  things 
that  arc  or  have  been  on  earth— 6.  Ooti's  own  perfection — fitness 
of  this  devotion  for  invalids 148 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MINTINQ   MONEY. 

Ood  the  centre  of  every  thing— so-called  pillars  of  the  Church — 
nature  and  grace — oblation  of  our  actions  in  union  with  those  of 
Christ— minting  money — the  spirit  of  oblation — 1.  the  oblation 
of  our  ordinary  actions — methods  and  practices — difference  be- 
tween canonized  and  uncanonized  writers — St.  Gertrude's  obla- 
tions—2.  oblation  of  recreations — hints  to  valetudinarians— St. 
Charles'  game  of  chess — Noe's  ark— 3.  oblation  of  solitude — 
4.  rising  to  God  by  common  sights  and  sounds— examples  and 
practices— Peter  Faber's  three  methods  of  prayer— multiplicity 
of  mental  devotions — vocal  prayer — dry  devotion  not  solid — 
6.  ejaculatory  prayer — Father  Baker — how  to  say  ofHce— 6.  obla- 
tion of  sufferings— what  it  is  to  be  allowed  to  please  God— God 
begging  glory  of  Ilis  own  creatures 181 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THANKSaiTING. 

Neglect  of  thanksgiving— spirit  of  the  Eucharist— faults  of  good 
people— dry  people  ordinarily  self-righteous — fatherly  providence 
— a  spirit  of  thanksgiving  the  characteristic  of  the  saints — devo- 
tion to  the  Eternal  Word- practices— Jewish  tradition  from 
Philo — Heads  of  thanksgiving— 1.  Common  blesf'ings- 2.  personal 
blessings — 3.  afflictions— 4.  trifling  blessings — 5.  mi.'^ellaneoua 
blessings — 6.  For  irrational  creatures — 7.  Blessings  of  our  ene- 
mies— the  French  Apostolate  of  prayer — 8.  For  angels  and  saints 
— 9.  for  supernaturalness  of  the  Church,  and  the  gift  of  faith — 
St.  Jane  Francos  de  Chantal — 10.  For  mass — materials  for  thanks- 
giving after  mass  and  communion — our  own  practice  hitherto — 
Bpiritual  benefits  of  thanksgiving— application  of  it  to  the  three 
instincts 23u 


12  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PRAISE    AND    DESIRE. 

rA«i 

Cdence  and  grace — Tarry-at-IIome  travelling— what  praise  and  de- 
sire are — Loves  of  Complacency  and  Benevolence — value  of  inte- 
rior acts — description  of  God — meditation  on  the  attributes  of 
God — application  of  Praise  and  Desire  to  the  three  instincts — how 
•we  get  at  the  love  of  complacency — Saints  made  up  of  six  things — 
the  HOLY  jnBDLE  CLASS  of  the  Church— Examples— 1.  From  the 
Kaccolta — 2.  Lancisius'  devotions  to  Jesus  Kisen — 3.  St.  Mary 
Magdalene  of  Pazzi's  preparation  for  Whitsuntide — 4.  renewal 
of  vows  and  heroic  desires — regimental  holiness — liberty  of  spirit 
— St.  Gertrude,  and  the  old  Benedictine  ascetics — the  great  won- 
der that  God  loves  men — the  greater  that  He  lets  men  love  Ilim 
—the  greatest  that  they  will  not  do  so — the  spirit  of  reparation- 
Mary  the  Christian's  Benedicite— the  praise  of  the  Sacred  Heart — 
God's  praise  of  Himself 29& 


CHAPTER  IX. 

PURGATORY. 

Thoughts  on  hell— Rosignoli— the  world  of  sense  and  the  world  of 
spirit — communion  of  the  saints — two  views  of  purgatory — 
synopsis  of  the  treatise  of  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa— what  the  two 
views  agree  in — ^lessons  learned,  for  our  own  good,  and  for  the 
good  of  the  Holy  Souls — Pleas  for  this  devotion — 1.  All  devotions 
centre  in  it— 2.  It  implies  all  the  works  of  mercy— 3.  An  exercise 
of  the  three  theological  virtues — 4.  Its  effects  upon  the  spiritual 
life — the  ways  of  practising  it— story  of  Marie  Denise  de  Martig- 
nat— the  sorrows  of  kind  hearts — God's  description  of  Himself  as 
a  poor  invalid — the  doctrinal  character  and  fulness  of  their  devo- 
tion— sweet  song  of  the  Sacred  Heart 367 

Letter  to  the  Confraternity,       426 


[TriTIVBRSIT?; 

I^II  f0r  ^tSM. 


CHAPTER  I. 

%\t  Inteusts  0f  lesHS. 

ESUS  belongs  to  us.  He  vouchsafes 
to  put  Himself  at  our  disposal. 
He  communicates  to  us  every 
thing  of  His  which  we  are  capa- 
ble of  receiving.  He  loves  us  with 
a  love  which  no  words  can  tell, 
nay,  above  all  our  thought  and 
imagination ;  and  He  condescends  to 
desire,  with  a  longing  which  is 
equally  indescribable,  that  we  should 
love  Him,  with  a  fervent  and  entire 
love.  His  merits  may  be  called  ours 
as  well  as  His.  His  satisfactions  are 
not  so  much  His  treasures  as  they  are 
ours.  His  sacraments  are  but  so  many 
ways  which  His  love  has  designed  to  com- 
municate Him  to  our  souls.  Wherever  wo 
turn  in  the  church  of  God,  there  is  Jesua. 
He  is  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end  of  every  thing 
to  us.     He  is  our  help  in  penance,  our  consolation 

2  13 


14  THE   IN-'ERESTS   OF  JESUS. 


in  grief,  our  support  in  trial.  There  is  nothing  good, 
nothing  holy,  nothing  beautiful,  nothing  joyous, 
which  He  is  not  to  His  servants.  No  one  need  be 
poor,  because,  if  he  chooses,  he  can  have  Jesus  for 
Ris  own  property  and  possession.  No  one  need  be 
downcast,  for  Jesus  is  the  joy  of  heaven,  and  it  is 
His  joy  to  enter  into  sorrowful  hearts.  We  can  ex- 
aggerate about  many  things ;  but  we  can  never  exag- 
gerate our  obligations  to  Jesus,  or  the  compassionate 
abundance  of  the  love  of  Jesus  to  us.  All  our  lives 
long  we  might  talk  of  Jesus,  and  yet  we  should  never 
come  to  an  end  of  the  sweet  things  that  are  to  be  said 
about  Him.  Eternity  will  not  be  long  enough  to  learn 
all  He  is,  or  to  praise  Him  for  all  He  has  done ;  but 
then  that  matters  not;  for  we  shall  be  always  with 
Him,  and  we  desire  nothing  more. 

He  has  kept  nothing  back  from  us.  There  is  not  a 
faculty  of  His  Human  Soul  which  has  not  had  to  do 
with  our  salvation.  There  is  not  one  limb  of  His 
Sacred  Body  which  has  not  suffered  for  us.  There  is 
not  one  pain,  one  shame,  one  indignity,  which  He  has 
not  drained  to  its  last  dreg  of  bitterness  on  our  behalf. 
There  is  not  one  drop  of  His  most  Precious  Blood 
which  He  has  not  shed  for  us  ;  nor  is  there  one  beat- 
ing of  His  Sacred  Heart  which  is  not  an  act  of  love  to 
us.  We  read  wonderful  things  in  the  Lives  of  the 
Saints  about  their  love  of  God,  wonderful  things  which 
we  dare  not  think  of  imitating.  They  practised  fear- 
ful austerities,  or  they  spent  years  in  unbroken  silence, 
or  they  were  ever  in  ecstasies  and  raptures,  or  they 
were  passionately  in  love  with  contempt  and  suffering, 
or  they  pined  and  wasted  away  in  holy  impatience  for 
death,  orth  7  courted  death,  and  expired  in  the  long 


THE   INTERESTS    OF   JESUS.  15 


tortures  of  an  excraoiating  martyrdom.  Each  one  of 
tliese  things  separately  fills  us  with  wonder.  Yet,  put 
them  all  together,  conceive  all  the  love  of  Peter,  Paul, 
and  John,  of  Joseph  and  of  Magdalen,  of  all  the  apos- 
tles and  martyrs,  the  confessors  and  virgins  of  the 
Church  in  all  ages,  thrown  into  one  heart  made,  by 
miracle,  strong  enough  to  hold  such  love ;  then  add  to 
it  all  the  burning  love  which  the  nine  choirs  of  multi- 
tudinous angels  have  for  God,  and  crown  it  all  with 
the  amazing  love  of  the  Immaculate  Heart  of  our  dear 
Mother ;  and  still  it  comes  not  near  to,  nay,  it  is  but  a 
poor  imitation  of,  the  love  which  Jesus  has  for  each 
one  of  us,  however  lowly  and  unworthy  and  sinful  we 
may  be  !  We  know  our  own  unworthiness.  We  hate 
ourselves  for  our  own  past  sins.  We  are  impatient 
with  our  own  secret  meanness,  irritability,  and  wretch- 
edness. We  are  tired  with  our  own  badness  and  lit- 
tleness. Yet,  for  all  that.  He  loves  us  with  this  unut- 
terable love,  and  is  ready,  if  need  be,  as  He  revealed  to 
one  of  His  servants,  to  come  down  from  heaven  to  be 
crucified  over  again  for  each  one  of  us. 

The  wonder  is  not  merely  that  He  should  love  us  so 
much,  but  that  He  should  love  us  at  all.  Considering 
who  He  is,  and  what  we  are,  have  we  any  one  single 
claim  to  His  love,  except  the  excess  and,  without  Him, 
the  hopelessness  of  our  misery  ?  We  have  no  claims 
upon  Him,  but  those  which"  He  Himself  in  His  com- 
passion has  invented  for  us.  What  can  be  more  un- 
lovely than  we  are,  what  more  ungenerous,  what  more 
ungrateful  ?  And  yet  He  loves  us  with  this  excess  of 
love  !  Oh,  how  is  it  we  can  ever  turn  ourselves  away 
from  this  one  idea !  How  is  it  we  can  take  an  interest 
in  any  thing  but  this  surpassing  love  of  God  for  His 


lb  THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS. 


fallen  creatures !  It  is  almost  surprising  how  we  can 
bear  to  go  through  our  ordinary  duties,  or  how  it  is 
that,  like  men  in  love  with  created  loves,  we  do  not 
forget  to  eat  and  drink  and  sleep,  feeling  ourselves 
every  hour  of  the  day  and  night  the  object  of  the  most 
profuse  tenderness  and  the  most  unutterable  abundance 
of  the  love  of  God,  the  Almighty,  the  All  Wise,  the 
AH  Holy,  the  All  Beautiful,  the  Everlasting  I  Oh  most 
incredible  of  startling  wonders  !  Blessings  are  heaped 
upon  us  till  we  are  almost  out  of  breath  with  them. 
Graces  are  multiplied  upon  graces  till  they  get  beyond 
our  power  of  reckoning.  His  compassions  are  new 
every  morning.  And  then,  after  all,  there  is  yet  to 
come  the  recompense  which  eye  has  never  seen,  nor 
ear  heard,  nor  heart  conceived !  This  is  His  side  of 
the  question. 

Alas!  for  our  dearest  Lord!  Up  to  this  day,  what 
have  we  done  for  Him  ?  And  see  what  he  has  done 
for  us  ;  and  the  end  of  His  doing  it  all  was  to  gain  our 
love !  We  look  upon  a  crucifix,  and  it  hardly  moves 
us.  We  hear  of  His  bitter  Passion,  but  our  eyes  are 
dry,  and  our  hearts  indifferent.  We  kneel  down  to 
pray,  but  we  can  hardly  keep  our  thoughts  fixed  upon 
Him  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  together.  We  go  into 
His  own  most  holy  presence,  and  we  hardly  bend  the 
knee  before  the  Tabernacle,  lest  it  should  spoil  our 
clothes.  We  see  others  sin,  and  what  matter  is  it  to 
us  that  Jesus  is  offended,  so  long  as  it  is  not  we  who 
are  risking  our  souls  by  offending  him?  Oh,  these 
are  strange  signs  of  love!  Surely  Jesus  cannot  be 
much  to  us,  if  this  is  the  way  we  feel  about  Him. 
Yet  so  it  ia.  We  go  our  own  way,  and  do  our  own 
will.    The  great  thing  is  to  please  ourselves,  and  to 


THE   INTERESTS    OF   JESUS.  17 


mak«  tmngs  easy  to  us.  Life  must  be  taught  to  run 
smooth.  As  to  penance,  it  must  be  kept  at  arm's 
length.  We  must  have  bodily  comforts  and  worldly 
conveniences,  and  our  spiritual  life  must  be  nothing 
but  a  sufficiency  of  those  inward  consolations,  without 
which  our  souls  give  us  pain,  because  they  are  not  at 
rest.  If  we  worship  God,  it  is  for  self;  if  we  do  good 
to  others,  it  is  tseii  we  are  seeking,  even  in  our  charity. 
Poor  Jesus  Christ  f  as  St.  Alphonso  used  to  say,  poor 
Jesus  Christ!  "Who  rhinks  of  Him?  who  weds  His 
interests  ? 

Yet  this  is  the  very  object  of  our  Confraternity  of 
the  Precious  Blood — to  look  after  the  interests  of 
Jesus,  and  to  forward:  tnem  in  every  way  we  can. 
There  is  hardly  any  worialy  object  of  importance 
which  has  not  got  some  association  to  defend  its  rights 
and  to  forward  its  interests ;  why  should  not  the  in- 
terests of  Jesus  have  one  also  i  Science  has  its  meet- 
ings, and  its  corresponding  societies.  Men  band  to- 
gether in  ord-er  to  gain  the  victory  for  some  favourite 
political  opinions.  They  make  companies  for  railways 
and  for  steam-packets  and  tor  coal-mines.  AVhy 
should  not  we  open  an  office  to  transact  the  affairs  of 
Jesus,  to  protect  His  rights,  and  advance  His  interests  ? 
Now  remember!  this  is  just  the  business  of  the  Con- 
fraternity of  the  Precious  Blood,  When  we  join  it,  we 
must  leave  self  at  the  door.  There  is  no  self  in  it. 
It  is  all  for  Jesus.  It  is  the  office  of  tho  interests  of 
Jesus. 

Now,  let  us  try  to  get  an  idea  of  the  inlr^rests  of 

Jesus ;  else,  how  shall  we  be  able  to  do  any  thing  to 

advance  them  ?     Men  cannot  work  in  the  dark  ;  they 

must  know  what  they  are  about.     You  know  what  it 

B  2* 


18  THE   INTEREyTS   OF  JESUS. 


18  to  have  an  interest.  If  you  look  over  the  world, 
you  will  see  that  everybody  has  some  interest  at  heart, 
and  is  working  hard  for  it.  There  are  almost  as  many 
interests  in  the  world  as  there  are  men.  Every  on  3 
you  meet  in  the  streets  is  going  after  something.  You 
see  it  in  his  face,  his  quick  eye,  and  his  rapid  walk. 
Either  it  is  political,  or  literary,  or  mercantile,  or 
scientific,  or  fashionable,  or  simply  ambitious,  or  dis- 
honest. Still,  whatever  it  is,  every  man  has  wedded 
the  interest  of  his  choice,  and  is  doing  his  duty  to  it. 
He  works  hard  for  it  all  day ;  he  goes  to  bed  with  the 
thought  of  it,  and  he  wakes  with  it  in  the  morning. 
Even  on  Sunday,  it  is  rather  his  hand  that  is  resting, 
than  his  head  or  his  heart:  they  are  full  of  his  interest. 
Look  what  men  will  do,  singly,  or  banded,  to  put  down 
slavery,  or  to  get  free  trade,  or  to  compete  for  a  large 
order,  or  to  carry  the  mails,  or  to  make  new  railroads. 
It  is  plain  men  have  interests  enough  in  the  world, 
that  they  love  them  dearly,  and  work  for  them  man- 
fully. Oh  that  it  were  all  for  God,  the  good,  the  mer- 
ciful, the  eternal  God ! 

The  devil  also  has  his  interests  in  the  world.  lie 
has  been  allowed  to  set  up  a  kingdom  in  opposition  to 
God,  and,  like  all  sovereigns,  he  has  a  multitude  of 
interests.  Thus  he  has  agents  everywhere,  active, 
diligent,  unseen  spirits,  swarming  in  the  streets  of  the 
cities,  to  push  on  his  interests.  They  canvass  the 
labourers  in  the  field.  They  see  what  they  can  do 
with  the  monk  in  his  cloister  and  the  hermit  in  his 
cell.  Even  in  the  churches,  during  Mass  or  Bene- 
diction, they  are  hard  at  work,  plying  their  unholy 
trade.  Our  fellow-men  also,  by  thousands,  let  them 
selves  out  to  him  as  agents  ;  nay,  numbers  work  in  hi? 


THE    INTERESTS    OP   JESUS.  J 9 


interests  for  nothing  ;  and,  what  is  more  shocking  stiJl, 
many  do  his  work,  and  almost  fancy  it  is  God's  work 
they  are  doing,  it  looks  so  good  and  blameless  in  their 
eyes.  IIow  many  Catholics  oppose  good  things,  or 
criticise  good  persons ;  yet  they  would  never  consent 
to  be  the  devil's  agents,  if  they  really  knew  what  they 
were  about.  These  interests  of  the  devil  are  very  va- 
rious. To  cause  mortal  sin,  to  persuade  to  venial  sin, 
to  hinder  grace,  to  prevent  contrition,  to  keep  back 
from  sacraments,  to  promote  lukewarmness,  to  bring 
holy  people  and  bishops  and  religious  orders  into  dis- 
repute, and  to  stand  in  the  way  of  vocations,  to  spread 
gossip,  to  distract  people  at  prayer,  to  make  men  fall 
in  love  with  the  frivolities  and  fashions  of  the  world, 
to  get  men  to  spend  money  on  comforts,  furniture, 
jewels,  nicknacks,  parrots,  old  china,  fine  dress,  instead 
of  on  the  poor  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  induce  Catholics  "to 
worship  great  people  and  put  their  trust  in  princes, 
and  fawn  upon  political  parties  in  power,  to  make 
them  full  of  criticism  of  each  other,  and  quick  as  chil- 
dren to  take  scandal,  to  diminish  devotion  to  our 
Blessed  Lady,  and  to  make  people  fancy  divine  love  is 
an  enthusiasm  and  an  indiscretion :  these  are  the  chief 
interests  of  the  devil.  It  is  amazing  with  what  energy 
he  works  at  them,  and  with  what  consummate  craft 
and  dreadful  ability  he  advances  them  in  the  world. 
It  would  be  a  thing  to  admire,  if  it  did  not  make  us 
afraid  for  our  own  souls,  and  if  all  things  which  arc 
against  God  were  not  simply  abominable,  and  to  be 
hated.  The  dark  enemy  of  the  Creator  is  mysteriously 
allowed  a  marvellous  share  of  success  in  that  creation 
which  the  All  Holy  once  looked  down  upon,  and 
blessed  in  Ilis  unspeakable  complacency.     Men's  in- 

[UBIVBHSITTi 


^ilPW.-^ 


20  THE    INTERESTS    OF   JESUS. 


terests  put  the  interests  of  Jesus  on  one  side,  partly  at 
troublesome,  more  often  as  insignificant.  The  devil's 
interests  are  directly  oppoaed  to  those  of  Jesus,  and 
^vhere  they  are  successful,  either  debase  them,  or  kill 
them  altogether. 

Now,  let  us  look  at  the  interests  of  Jesus.  Let  us 
take  a  view  of  the  whole  CUiurch,  which  is  His  Spouse. 
Look  first  into  heaven,  the  Church  triumphant.  It  is 
the  interest  of  Jesus  that  the  glory  of  the  most  Holy 
Trinity^  should  be  increased  in  every  possible  manner, 
and  at  every  hour  of  night  and  day ;  and  this  glory, 
which  is  called  God's  accidental  glory,  is  increased  by 
every  good  work,  word,  and  thought,  every  correspond- 
ence to  grace,  every  resistance  to  temptation,  every 
act  of  worship,  every  sacrament  rightly  administered 
or  humbly  received,  every  act  of  homage  and  love  to 
Mary,  every  invocation  of  the  saints,  every  bead  of  the 
Rosary,  every  sign  of  the  Cross,  every  drop  of  holy 
water,  every  pain  patiently  endured,  every  harsh  judg- 
ment meekly  borne,  every  good  wish,  though  it  end 
only  with  the  wishing,  and  never  sees  fulfilment — pro- 
vided there  be  a  devout  intention  along  with  all  these 
things,  and  they  are  done  in  union  with  the  merits  of 
our  sweet  Lord.  Every  hour,  at  least  so  we  trust,  a 
new  soul  lands  in  heaven  from  Purgatory  or  from 
earth,  and  begins  its  eternity  of  rapture  and  of  praise. 
Each  soul  that  swells  the  throng  of  worshippers,  each 
Bilent  voice  added  to  the  angelic  choirs,  is  an  increase 
to  the  glory  of  God  ;  and  so  it  is  the  interest  of  Jesu3 
to  make  these  arrivals  more  frequent,  and  that  they 
should  bring  more  merits  and  higher  degrees  of  love 
with  them  when  they  come.  Even  in  heaven  the 
Confraternity   has   work  to  do,  and  power  to  do  it. 


THE   INTERESTS   OP  JESUS.  21 


Heaven  is  one  of  our  offices,  and  there  is  much  busi- 
ness to  be  despatched  in  its  beautiful  courts,  business 
for  the  interests  of  Jesus,  business  which  He  has  at 
heart,  and,  therefore,  which  it  behooves  us  to  have  in 
hand. 

Next,  look  at  that  vast  kingdom  of  Purgatory,  with 
its  empress-mother,  Mary.  All  those  countless  throngs 
of  souls  are  the  dear  and  faithful  spouses  of  Jesus. 
Yet  in  what  a  strange  abandonment  of  supernatural 
suffering  has  His  love  left  them  !  He  longs  for  their 
deliverance  ;  He  yearns  for  them  to  be  transferred  from 
that  land,  perpetually  overclouded  with  pain,  to  the 
bright  sunshine  of  their  heavenly  home.  Yet  He  has 
tied  His  own  hands,  or  nearly  so.  He  gives  them  no 
more  grace;  He  allows  them  no  more  time  for  pe- 
nance ;  He  prevents  them  from  meriting ;  nay,  some 
have  thought  they  could  not  pray.  How  then  stands 
the  case  with  the  souls  in  the  suffering  Church? 
Why,  it  is  a  thing  to  be  meditated  on  when  we  have 
said  it — they  depend  almost  more  on  earth  than  they 
do  on  heaven,  almost  more  on  us  than  on  Him ;  so  He 
has  willed  it  on  whom  all  depend,  and  without  whom 
there  is  no  dependence.  It  is  clear  then  that  Jesus 
has  His  interests  there.  He  wants  His  captives  re- 
leased. Those  whom  he  has  redeemed  He  now  bids 
us  redeem,  us  whom,  if  there  be  life  at  all  in  us.  He 
has '  already  Himself  redeemed.  Every  satisfaction 
offered  up  to  God  for  these  suffering  souls,  every  obla- 
tion of  the  Precious  Blood  to  the  Eternal  Father,  every 
Mass  heard,  every  communion  received,  every  volun- 
tary penance  undergone:  the  scourge,  the  hair-shirt, 
the  prickly  chain,  every  indulgence  gained,  every  jubi- 
lee whose  conditions  we  have  fulfilled,  every  De  Pro* 


22  THE   INTERESTS   OP  JESUS. 


fiindis  whisperecl,  every  little  alms  doled  out  to  th« 
poor  Avho  are  poorer  than  ourselves,  and,  if  they  be 
offered  for  the  intention  of  these  dear  prisoners,  tho 
interests  of  Jesus  are  hourly  forwarded  in  Mary's 
kingdom  of  Purgatory.  This  is  another  office  of  tho 
Confraternity,  and  there  is  no  fear  of  overworking  the 
glorious  secretary  of  that  wide  realm,  the  blessed 
Michael,  Mary's  subject.  See  how  men  work  at  tho 
pumps  on  ship-board  when  they  are  fighting  for  their 
lives  with  an  ugly  leak.  Oh  that  we  had  the  charity 
so  to  work,  with  the  sweet  instrumentality  of  indul- 
gence, for  the  holy  souls  in  Purgatory !  The  infinite 
satisfactions  of  Jesus  are  at  our  command,  and  Mary's 
sorrows,  and  the  Martyr's  pangs,  and  the  Confessor's 
weary  perseverance  in  well-doing.  Jesus  will  not 
help  Himself  here ;  because  He  loves  to  see  us  help- 
ing Ilim,  and  because  He  thinks  our  love  will  rejoice 
that  He  still  leaves  us  something  we  can  do  for  Ilim. 
There  have  been  saints  who  have  devoted  their  whole 
lives  to  this  one  work,  mining  in  Purgatory :  and  to 
those  w^ho  reflect  in  faith,  it  does  not  seem,  after  all, 
so  strange.  It  is  a  foolish  comparison,  simply  because 
it  is  so  much  below  the  mark,  but  on  all  principles  of 
reckoning,  it  is  a  much  less  work  to  have  won  the  bat- 
tle of  Waterloo,  or  to  have  invented  the  steam-engine, 
than  to  have  freed  one  soul  from  Purgatory ;  ayd  I 
should  be  slow  to  think  there  was  a  single  member  of 
the  Confraternity  who  had  not  done  more  than  that 
already. 

Now  look  at  the  Church  militant  on  earth.  Tho 
interests  of  Jesus  are  rich  and  plentiful  enough  hero. 
There  are  things  to  be  done,  and  things  to  be  left 
undone.     Hearts  to  be  persuaded,  and  hearts  to  be 


THE   INTERESTS   OF  JESUS  23 


dissuaded.  There  is  so  much  to  do,  the  puzzle  is 
where  to  begin,  and  what  to  do  first.  Men  who  do 
not  love  Jesus  are  to  be  made  to  love  Ilim,  and  men 
who  love  Him  to  love  Ilim  a  great  deal  more.  Each 
of  us  might  take  one  department,  and  we  should  find 
more  work  to  be  done  in  it  than  we  can  get  through  in 
our  best  of  times.  There  are  so  many  people  in  their 
agony,  and  dying  every  minute,  all  over  the  world. 
Oh,  iu  what  danger  the  very  dearest  interests  of  Jesus 
are  at  their  dying  beds !  Satan  is  hard  at  work ; 
temptations  thicker  than  flakes  in  a  snow-storm  ;  and 
whoso  wins  this  battle,  Jesus  or  the  devil,  is  so  far 
conqueror  for  ever ;  for  there  is  no  fighting  it  over 
again.  There  are  Catholics  who  have  not  been  near 
tlie  sacraments  for  years,  and  there  are  saints  whoso 
half-century  of  merits  and  heroic  love  is  positively  in 
peril  of  being  lost ;  they  only  want  one  thing,  and  let 
them  sufier  ever  so  much  they  cannot  merit  it,  and  that 
is,  final  perseverance.  There  are  heretics  who  never 
suspected  they  were  in  heresy,  and  heretics  in  bad 
faith,  who  have  told  falsehoods  about  the  Church,  and 
have  run  down  the  Mother  of  God.  There  are  Jews 
descended  from  those  who  crucified  our  Lord,  and 
there  are  Mohammedans  who  are  the  masters  of  Jeru- 
salem. There  are  Hottentots  who  worship  loathsome 
images,  and  there  are  American  Indians  who  have  no 
higher  thought  than  to  hunt  for  all  eternity,  their 
merits  proportioned  to  the  number  of  their  murders. 
There  are  men  whom  the  unthawing  snows  w^hiten, 
and  men  whom  the  fierce  heats  of  the  south  scorch,  on 
the  mrountain  tops,  in  the  deep  valleys,  in  the  city  and 
in  the  wilderness,  on  the  land  and  on  the  sea,  in  the 
dungeon  and  in  the  palace ;  all  dying,  many  a  minute, 


24  THE   INTERESTS   OF  JESUS. 


in  the  most  frightful  unpreparedness  that  can  be  con- 
ceived ;  and  Jesus  died  for  every  one  of  them,  aa 
exclusively  as  if  there  had  been  nobody  else  to  die  for, 
and  He  is  ready  this  moment  to  come  down  and  die 
for  each  one  again,  if  it  were  needed.  Go  all  through 
His  long  Passion,  mark  His  steps,  His  tears,  His 
drops  of  blood ;  count  the  thorns,  the  blows,  the  spit- 
tings, the  falls ;  fathom  the  interior  depths  of  the 
shame  and  shrinking,  the  torture  and  the  sickness  of 
His  Sacred  Heart ;  and  it  was  all  for  that  poor  Indian, 
dying  far  away  this  hour  beneath  the  shadow  of  the 
Andes ;  and  if  he  dies  and  is  not  saved,  it  will  have 
been  in  vain.  This  is  but  one  department  of  the 
interests  of  Jesus,  men  in  their  last  agony ;  and  St. 
Camillus  was  raised  up  to  found  an  Order  expressly 
for  them.  What  might  I  not  say  of  souls  in  mortal 
sin,  of  heretics  and  infidels,  of  criminals  in  prison,  of 
persons  under  calumny,  of  others  in  scruples  or  tempta- 
tions ?  I  should  never  have  done  if  I  described  all  the 
interests  of  Jesus  upon  earth. 

As,  however,  I  have  mentioned  the  dying,  and  the 
dangers  of  the  death-bed,  as  the  object  of  a  special 
devotion,  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  remind  you  that 
Pius  Vn.  attached  indulgences  to  the  recital  of  three 
Paters  and  Aves  for  the  dying,  in  honour  of  the  Agony 
of  Jesus,  which  will  be  found  in  the  Raccolta.  Many 
saints  and  holy  persons  have  had  this  special  devotion 
for  souls  in  their  agony.  In  the  life  of  one  of  the  first 
mothers  of  the  Visitation  we  read  that,  as  she  was 
watching  before  the  Blessed  Sacrament  during  the 
night  of  Holy  Thursday,  1644,  she  saw  a  vision  of  our 
Lord  in  His  agonj ,  and  with  this  vision  there  was  given 
her  a  light  and  an  efficacious  grace  to  pray  for  the 


THE   INTERESTS   OP  JESUS.  25 


intentions  of  persons  in  their  agony.  "Alas!"  she 
eaid,  "  the  agonies  of  poor  creatures  are  strange  hours," 
and,  in  truth,  that  moment,  decisive  of  eternity,  is  the 
only  important  affair  we  have  to  transact.  From  the 
hour  she  received  this  admirable  grace,  she  often 
seemed  to  hear  the  sighs  of  dying  persons ;  and  tho 
effect  this  had  upon  her  was  so  great,  that  ever  after- 
ward she  said,  night  and  morning,  the  prayers  of  the 
Church  for  those  in  their  agony.  She  often  meditated 
on  the  words  which  our  Lord  said  of  Himself  a  little 
before  His  death,  "  The  prince  of  this  world  is  come, 
and  finds  nothing  in  Me,^'  as  if  all  life  was  to  be  so 
directed  as  to  enable  us  to  make  these  words  in  some 
measure  our  own  when  we  come  to  die.  Of  the  same 
religious  We  are  told,  in  another  place,  that  when  the 
Bishop  of  Geneva  came,  on  St.  Jerome's  day,  to  conse- 
crate the  Church  of  the  order  at  Annecy,  and  the 
superioress  wished  one  of  the  six  chapels  to  be  dedi- 
cated to  St.  Joseph,  this  good  sister  begged  her  to  let 
it  be  dedicated  to  St.  Joseph  dying  in  the  arms  of 
Jesus  and  Mary.  "Ah  !  my  good  mother!"  she  cried, 
**  God  has  made  known  to  me  that,  by  this  devotion  to 
St.  Joseph  Dying,  His  goodness  wills  to  give  many 
graces  to  persons  in  their  agony,  and  that,  as  St. 
Joseph  did  not  go  to  heaven  at  once,  Jesus  not  having 
yet  opened  it,  but  that  he  descended  to  the  limbus  of 
the  fathers,  it  is  a  most  efficacious  devotion  for  the 
agonizing,  and  for  the  souls  in  purgatory,  to  offer  to 
God  the  resignation  of  the  great  St.  Joseph  in  dying 
and  leaving  Jesus  and  Mary,  and  to  honour  the  holy 
patience  of  his  tranquil  expectation,  till  the  dawn  of 
Easter,  when  the  Risen  Jesus  set  him  free."  So  much 
for  this  devotion  ?  but,  I  repeat,  I  should  never  have 
3 


26  THE   INTERESTS   OP  JESUS. 


done  if  I  described  all  the  interests  of  Jesus  upon 
earth. 

There  is  not  a  public-house  or  a  gin-palace,  not  a 
threatre  or  a  casino,  not  a  ball-room  or  a  concert,  not  a 
public  meeting  or  a  parliament,  not  a  shop  or  a  wharf, 
not  a  fair,  a  race-course,  or  a  market,  not  a  carriage  or 
a  ship,  not  a  school  or  a  church,  where  His  interests 
are  not  in  danger  at  all  hours,  and  where  He  is  not 
calling  on  us  to  help  Him.  This  is  the  fighting  part  of 
the  Church ;  no  wonder  there  is  so  much  to  do,  and  so 
little  time  to  do  it  in.  There  is  not  a  thing  which  has 
not  two  sides,  and  one  side  belongs  to  Jesus,  and  the 
other  side  is  against  Him.  The  devil  has  other  interests 
besides  sheer  sin.  He  can  fight  against  Jesus  with  low 
views  almost  as  successfully  as  with  mortal  sins.  The 
slow  poison  of  souls  sometimes  does  his  work  better 
than  the  quick.  See,  then,  the  multiplicity,  the  ubi- 
quity, the  urgency,  of  the  interests  of  Jesus ;  and  it  is 
to  meet  all  this  that  we  are  members  of  the  Confra- 
ternity. 

Yet  although  it  is  impossible  to  go  through  all  the 
interests  of  Jesus  on  earth  with  any  thing  like  minute- 
ness, it  is  necessary  to  have  somewhat  more  of  a  clear 
and  definite  view  about  them ;  in  order  that  we  may 
understand  our  office  and  work  as  members  of  the 
Confraternity.  If  we  study  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus, 
as  He  has  revealed  it  to  us  in  the  Gospel,  in  the  history 
of  the  Church,  in  the  lives  of  His  saints,  and  as  we 
have  found  it  ourselves  in  prayer,  we  shall  see  that  the 
multitudinous  and  manifold  interests  of  our  most  dear 
Lord  may  be  gathered  up  into  four  classes;  and  a 
short  sketch  of  these  classes  will  put  us  in  possession 
of  that  clear  view  of  our  work  which  we  are  seeking 


THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS.  27 


after.  The  first  interests  of  Jesus  are,  of  course,  in 
our  own  souls.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within  us. 
Yet,  all  important  as  it  is,  the  question  of  our  own 
holiness  is  not,  at  least  directly,  the  one  we  are  con- 
cerned with  just  at  present.  Without  personal  holi- 
ness we  shall  do  nothing ;  but  this  is  not  the  time  or 
place  to  speak  of  that.  The  four  great  interests  of 
Jesus  to  which  I  am  now  alluding  are,  1,  The  glory  of 
His  Father,  2,  The  fruit  of  Ilis  Passion,  3,  The  honour 
of  His  Mother,  and  4,  The  esteem  of  grace.  Let  me 
say  a  word  on  each  of  these. 

1.  The  glory  of  His  Father.  When  we  study  our 
Blessed  Lord  as  He  is  represented  to  us  in  the  Gospels, 
nothing,  if  we  may  venture  to  use  such  an  expression, 
seems  so  like  a  ruling  passion  in  Him  as  His  longing 
for  His  Father's  glory.  From  the  time  when  at  the 
age  of  twelve  He  left  Mary,  and  stayed  behind  in  Jeru- 
salem, to  His  very  last  word  upon  the  Cross,  this  devo- 
tion to  the  glory  of  God  comes  up  at  every  turn.  As 
it  is  said  of  Him  on  one  occasion  that  the  zeal  for  God's 
house  ate  Him  up,  so  may  we  say  that  He  was  eaten 
up  continually  with  hungering  and  thirsting  after  His 
Father's  glory.  It  was  as  if  God's  glory  had  been  lost 
upon  the  earth,  and  He  was  come  to  seek  it  and  to  find 
it,  and  how  was  His  Sacred  Heart  straitened  until  He 
did  find  it !  Thus  was  He  our  example  !  for  this  end 
does  He  give  us  grace,  that  we  may  glorify  our  Father 
who  is  in  Heaven.  Now,  who  can  look  into  the  world, 
and  not  see  how  God's  glory  is  lost  upon  the  earth  ? 
It  is  the  interest  of  Jesus  that  we  should  seek  and  find 
it.  Apart  from  clear  acts  of  great  and  grievous  sin, 
how  is  God  forgotten,  clean  forgotten,  by  the  greatest 
part  of  mankind !     They  live  as  if  there  were  no  God. 


28  THE   INTERESTS   OP  JESUS. 


It  is  not  as  if  they  openly  rebelled  against  Ilim.  They 
pass  Ilim  over  and  ignore  Him.  He  is  an  inconveni- 
ence in  His  own  world,  an  impertinence  in  His  own 
creation.  So  He  has  been  quietly  set  on  one  side,  as  if 
He  were  an  idol  out  of  fashion,  and  in  the  way.  Men 
of  science  and  politicians  have  agreed  on  this,  and  men 
of  business  and  wealth  think  it  altogether  the  most 
decent  thing,  to  be  silent  about  God ;  for  it  is  difficult 
to  speak  of  Him,  or  have  a  view  of  Him,  without 
allowing  too  much  to  Him.  Here  is  a  desperate,  if  it 
were  not  for  grace  we  should  say  altogether  desperate, 
obstacle  to  the  interests  of  Jesus,  this  great  huge  impe- 
netrable mass  of  forgetfulness  of  God,  of  ignoring  of 
God.  Oh,  how  it  turns  our  hearts  sick,  and  makes  us 
long  for  death ;  for  what  can  we  do  in  so  hopeless  an 
affair  as  this  ?  Yet  we  must  try.  A  string  of  beads 
and  a  blessed  medal !  There  is  no  saying  what  they 
cannot  do !  And  a  single  Mass,  is  its  power  far  short 
of  infinite  ? 

Then  unfortunately  there  are  a  great  many  religious 
people  who  by  no  means  give  God's  glory  its  fitting 
place ;  many,  called  spiritual,  who  give  Him  but  the 
second  best  of  every  thing.  They  want  light  to  know 
God's  glory  when  they  see  it.  They  want  discernment 
to  detect  the  world  and  the  devil  under  the  show  of 
reason  and  moderation,  whereby  they  would  defraud 
Him  of  his  glory.  They  want  bravery  to  set  the 
world's  opinion  at  defiance,  and  consistency  to  make 
their  lives  all  of  a  piece  with  their  religion.  Good 
souls !  they  are  the  very  pestilence  of  the  Church,  and 
yet  they  never  for  one  moment  suspect  it ;  and  it  is 
very  much  for  the  interests  of  Jesus  that  they  should 
Bee  themselves,  and  other  things  as  well,  in  their  truo 


THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS.  29 


light.  So  here  also  we  have  some  work  to  do,  to  pra^ 
that  all  good  men,  and  men  trying  to  be  good,  should 
be  able  to  see  what  is  for  God's  glory  and  what  is  not. 
Oh,  what  ground  we  lose  every  day  for  the  want  of 
this  discernment ! 

Then,  there  are  religious  orders,  set  apart  with  the 
blessing  of  the  Church,  each  in  its  own  particular 
way,  to  work  out  this  glory  of  God.  There  are  bishops 
and  priests,  all  supposed  to  be  toiling  with  a  single  aim 
and  an  exclusive  perfection  for  this  one  thing.  There 
are  guilds  and  confraternities  without  number,  and  is 
not  this  their  end  ?  Calamities  have  to  be  endured, 
dangers  faced,  scandals  exposed,  the  Church  has  to 
knock  under  to  the  world  to-day,  and  to  rough-ride  it 
to-morrow ;  and  Jesus  has  interests  in  all  these  things  ; 
and  it  is  our  work  to  help  Him.  Half-a-dozen  men, 
going  about  God's  world,  seeking  nothing  but  God's 
glory, — they  would  remove  mountains.  This  was  pro- 
mised to  faith  ;  why  should  not  we  be  the  men  to  do  it  ? 

2.  The  fruit  of  His  Passion.  This  is  the  second  great 
interest  of  Jesus.  Every  sin  we  can  prevent,  no  matter 
how  venial,  is  a  great  thing  for  the  interests  of  Jesus. 
We  can  see  how  great  a  thing  it  is,  if  we  remember  that 
if  we  could  shut  hell  for  ever,  save  all  the  souls  that 
are  in  it,  empty  purgatory,  and  make  all  the  men  and 
women  on  earth  persevering  saints,  equal  to  St.  Peter 
and  St.  Paul,  by  telling  one  little,  and  such  a  little  !  lie, 
we  might  not  do  so  on  any  account ;  for  God's  glory 
would  suffer  more  by  that  little  lie,  than  it  would  gain 
by  all  the  rest.  What  a  work  then  will  it  be  for  tho 
interests  of  Jesus  to  prevent  one  mortal  sin  !  Yet  how 
easy  !  If  every  night,  before  we  go  to  sleep,  we  begged 
our  dear  Lady  to  offer  up  to  God  the  Precious  Blood  of 
3* 


30  THE   INTERESTS   OF  JESUS. 


her  dear  Son  for  grace  to  hinder  one  mortal  sin,  some- 
where in  the  world,  during  that  night,  and  then  re- 
newed the  same  offering  in  the  morning  for  the  hours 
of  daylight,  surely  such  an  offering,  and  by  such  hands, 
could  not  fail  to  win  the  grace  desired ;  and  then  each 
one  of  us  might  probably  hinder  seven  hundred  and 
thirty  mortal  sins  every  year  ;  and  if  a  thousand  of  us 
made  these  offerings,  and  persevered  in  them  for  twenty 
years,  why,  it  would  give  none  of  us  any  trouble,  and 
to  say  nothing  of  the  merit  we  should  gain,  here  would 
be  more  than  fourteen  million  mortal  sins  prevented ; 
and  if  all  the  members  of  the  Confraternity  did  it,  you 
would  have  to  multiply  it  again  by  ten.  Ah!  at  this 
rate  the  interests  of  Jesus  would  prosper,  and  how  hap- 
py, how  immensely  happy  should  we  be  ! 

So,  again,  every  time  we  get  any  one  to  go  to  confes- 
sion who  stands  in  need  of  it,  even  though  it  be  only  to 
confess  venial  sins,  we  increase  the  fruit  of  our  beloved 
Kedeemer's  Passion.  Every  act  of  contrition  we  per- 
suade men  to  make,  or  by  prayer  obtain  them  the 
grace  to  make,  increases  the  blessed  fruit.  Every  ad- 
ditional strictness  or  trifling  penance,  of  which  we  are 
the  promoters,  answers  the  same  good  end :  and  so  do 
all  our  efforts  to  advance  frequent  communion.  When 
we  get  people  to  join  in  devotions  to  our  Lord's  Pas- 
sion, or  to  read  about  it,  and  meditate  upon  it,  we  are 
forwarding  the  interests  of  Jesus.  Some  one  said,  if  my 
memory  does  not  fail  me,  it  was  Albertus  Magnus,  that 
one  tear  shed  over  the  sufferings  of  our  dear  Lord  was 
worth  more  than  a  year's  fast  on  bread  and  water; 
what  then  if  we  get  others  to  weep  with  us  in  our  ten- 
derness for  the  Passi-on  of  Jesus !  What  a  great  deal 
a  little  prayer  will  do  !     Sweet  Jesus !  why  are  we  so 


THE   INTERESTS    OF   JESUS.  31 


hard  and  cold  ?     Oh,  kindle  in  us  the  sAveet  fire  which 
Thou  earnest  to  kindle  on  the  earth  ! 

3.  The  honour  of  His  Mother.  This  is  another  chief 
interest  of  Jesus,  and  the  whole  history  of  the  Church 
shows  how  near  it  lies  to  His  Sacred  Heart.  It  wa3 
the  love  of  her  that  specially  drew  Him  down  from 
heaven,  and  it  was  she  who  merited  the  time  of  the  In- 
carnation. She  was  the  chosen  one  of  the  Most  Holy  and 
Undivided  Trinity,  the  elected  daughter  of  the  Father, 
the  predestinated  Mother  of  the  Son,  and  the  chosen 
Spouse  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  right  doctrine  of  Jesus 
has  in  all  ages  been  wrapped  up  with  the  true  devotion 
to  Mary ;  and  the  Mother  can  be  wounded  only  through 
the  Son.  Thus  Mary  is  the  heritage  of  humble  and 
obedient  Catholics.  As  devotion  to  her  increases,  so 
does  holiness  increase.  The  saints  are  moulded  on  the 
love  of  her.  Sin  has  no  greater  enemy  than  Mary,  for 
the  thought  of  her  is  a  charm  against  it,  and  the  devils 
tremble  at  her  name.  No  one  can  love  the  Son,  but 
the  love  of  the  Mother  grows  in  Him  also  ;  no  one  can 
love  the  Mother,  without  his  heart  melting  with  tender- 
ness toward  the  Son.  Thus  has  Jesus  put  her  in  the 
front  of  His  Church,  that  she  should  be  the  token  of 
all  good,  and  the  stumbling-block  of  His  enemies. 
What  wonder  then  that  His  interests  are  deeply  con- 
cerned with  her  honour.  Every  heretical  blasphemy 
against  her  dignity,  for  which  you  make  reparation  by 
an  act  of  love,  or  an  act  of  thanksgiving  for  her  Imma- 
culate Conception  and  her  Perpetual  Virginity,  gives 
you  an  opportunity  of  advancing  the  interests  of  Jesus. 
Every  thing  you  can  do  to  spread  devotion  to  her,  and 
especially  to  make  Catholics  feel  more  tenderly  toward 
her,  is  a  distinct  work  for  Jesus,  and  one  which  He  will 


82  THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS. 


most  lovingly  repay.  To  get  people  to  go  to  commu- 
nion on  her  feasts,  to  be  enrolled  in  her  Confraterni 
ties,  to  have  a  picture  of  her,  to  gain  indulgences  for 
the  souls  in  purgatory  that  in  lifetime  were  most  de 
voted  to  her,  to  pray  for  the  speedy  definition  of  he* 
Immaculate  Conception,  to  say  one-third  of  the  Rosary 
every  day, — everybody  has  an  opportunity  of  doing  one 
or  the  other  of  these  things,  and  they  are  all  for  the  in 
terests  of  Jesus.  Ah !  there  is  one  devotion  I  will 
mention !  I  wish  we  were  all  inspired  with  it.  We 
should  do  well  then  for  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  our 
dear  Lord  would  get  such  abundance  of  new  love  all 
the  world  over !  It  is, — to  have  more  confidence  in  our 
Blessed  Mother's  prayers,  more  undoubting  trust,  more 
bold  petition,  more  real  faith  in  her.  There  would  be 
more  love  for  Mary,  if  there  were  more  faith  in  Mary. 
But  we  are  in  an  heretical  country ;  and  it  is  hard  to  live 
among  the  icebergs,  and  not  be  cold.  0  Jesus !  ani- 
mate our  confidence  in  Mary,  not  only  that  we  may 
work  more  for  Thy  sweet  interests,  but  that  we  may 
work  in  the  way  Thou  wouldst  have  us  work,  letting 
no  creature  be  dearer  to  us  than  the  one  who  was  dearer 
to  Thee  than  all  other  creatures  put  together ! 

4.  The  esteem  of  grace.  This  is  another  of  the  chief 
interests  of  Jesus.  The  world  would  be  quite  a  differ- 
ent place  if  men  only  valued  grace  at  its  proper  value. 
What  is  there  in  the  world  worth  any  thing  except 
grace?  Oh,  how  childishly  we  let  ourselves  be  run 
away  with  by  all  manner  of  follies,  which  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  interests  of  Jesus.  How  stupid  it  is  of 
us !  What  time  we  waste !  What  harm  we  do !  What 
good  we  leave  undone !  And  how  sweetly  patient 
Jesus  is  with  us  all  through  it !     If  people  esteemed 


THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS.  33 


grace  rightly,  every  one  of  the  other  interests  of  Jesus 
would  go  right.  When  they  go  wrong,  it  is  just  for 
the  want  of  this  esteem.  Graces  keep  coming ;  merits 
keep  multiplying;  almost  as  fast  as  the  blessed  beat 
ings  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  Meanwhile,  all  the  time 
that  Heart  is  yearning  over  us  with  enraptured  love, 
we  are  saying,  I  am  not  obliged  to  do  this ;  I  need  not 
forego  this  pleasure;  I  must  keep  down  religious 
enthusiasm.  God  help  us!  I  wish  we  could  get  a 
peep  of  any  enthusiasm  there  is  to  keep  down  !  Poor 
Jesus  Christ !  Poor  Jesus  Christ !  And  all  this  is  for 
want  of  a  true  esteem  of  grace.  Better  die  than  forfeit 
one  increase  of  grace  ;  do  we  all  believe  this  ?  No  ! 
but  we  say  we  believe  it.  If  the  funds  were  to  fall  to 
fifty  to-morrow,  it  would  be  of  less  consequence  than 
that  a  sick  Irishman  in  an  obscure  court  should  by  im- 
patience forfeit  one  degree  of  grace.  To  receive  (this 
is  what  theologians  tell  us)  all  the  natural  gifts  and 
ornaments  of  St.  Michael,  his  power,  strength,  wisdom, 
beauty,  and  all  the  rest,  would  be  nothing  compared 
with  one  additional  degree  of  grace,  such  as  we  get  a 
score  of  if  we  resist  an  angry  feeling  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour ;  for  grace  is  a  participation  of  the  Divine  Nature. 
Oh,  do  we  carry  this  out  in  our  own  lives,  while  we  are 
going  to  persuade  others  to  carry  it  out?  Fix  upon 
any  evil  or  calamity  of  the  Church  you  please,  and  I 
am  ready  to  show  you  it  would  never  have  taken  place, 
if  her  children  had  had  a  true  esteem  of  grace ;  and 
moreover,  that  it  would  be  set  right  by  to-morrow 
morning,  if  they  all  took  up  with  a  true  esteem  of 
grace.  To  gain  the  whole  world  will  be  no  profit  to  a 
man  if  he  sufier  detriment,  any  detriment,  to  his  im- 
mortal soul.     Go  and  persuade  people  of  this;  show 


84  THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS. 


them  -what  store  they  should  set  by  grace,  and  how  one 
grace  brings  another  along  M-ith  it,  and  how  all  these 
things  are  merits,  and  how  all  merits  turn  to  glories, 
glonies  which  are  eternal  in  the  heavens.  Ah !  you  will 
indeed  forward  our  dear  Lord's  interests  if  you  do  this : 
you  will  forward  them  far  more  than  you  have  any  idea 
of.  Only  pray  that  men  may  have  a  truer  esteem  of 
grace,  and  you  will  be  a  secret  apostle  of  Jesus.  All 
graces  are  in  Him  ;  Ho  is  the  fountain  and  the  fulness 
of  them  all ;  He  longs  to  pour  them  out  over  dear  souls, 
souls  that  He  died  for;  and  they  will  not  let  Him; 
because  they  must  esteem  the  graces  they  have,  in 
order  to  gain  new  ones.  Go  and  help  Jesus.  Why 
should  a  single  soul  be  lost,  for  which  He  died  ?  I  say, 
why  should  one  be  lost?  It  is  a  horrible  thing  to  think 
of  a  lost  soul,  most  horrible.  And  why  should  they  be 
lost?  why?  There  is  Precious  Blood  to  be  had  for 
the  asking ;  and  what  it  gives  is  grace.  But  men  do 
not  care  about  grace.  St.  Paul  spent  his  whole  life 
teaching  people  about  grace,  and  praying  for  grace  for 
them,  and  that  they  might  use  grace  rightly  when  they 
had  got  it.  When  the  Fountain  of  all  grace  is  spring- 
ing up  like  a  living  well  of  joy  in  the  heart  after  Com- 
munion, ask  Him  to  open  all  men's  eyes  to  the  beauty 
of  His  grace,  and  so  will  you  cause  His  grace  to  mul- 
tiply, and  with  the  multiplication  of  grace  His  interests 
to  prosper ;  for  thus  stands  the  case  with  our  dear  Lord, 
that  the  more  He  gives  away,  the  richer  He  becomes. 
Dear  King  of  souls !  how  is  it  we  can  think  of  any 
thing  but  Him  ?  To  think  that  we  should  be  allowed 
to  take  His  interests  in  hand :  it  is  amazing !  I  wonder 
it  does  net  send  us  into  an  ecstasy.  But  we  do  not 
know  our  Dwn  privileges;  and  why  not?    Because  we 


THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS.  35 


do  not  study  our  dearest  Lord  enough.  Why  not 
begin  in  time  what  we  shall  be  delighted  to  do  for  all 
eternity?  Study  Jesus.  Heaven  is  only  heaven, 
because  Jesus  is  there ;  and  I  do  not  understand  why 
earth  has  not  become  heaven  already,  since  Jesus  is 
on  earth  also.  Ah  1  it  is,  alas  !  because  we  have  the 
wretched  power  to  offend  Him  left  us.  Take  that 
away,  and  there  is  heaven  at  once,  or  purgatory,  which 
is  the  porch  of  Heaven.  Will  the  day  really  come 
when  we  can  sin  no  more,  no  more  wound  the  Heart  of 
Jesus  ?  0  blessed  Lord  I  let  the  sun  rise  soon  that  is 
not  to  set  till  that  dear  privilege  is  ours.  Why  fret 
and  question  if  it  is  to  be  heaven  at  once,  or  purgatory 
first?  what  matter?  The  great  thing  is  not  to  be  able, 
for  we  should  be  sure  to  do  it  if  we  were  able,  ever  to 
offend  our  dearest  Lord  and  Love  again. 

These  are  the  interests  of  Jesus,  to  forward  which  is 
the  great  work  of  our  Confraternity.  Or  rather,  these 
are  samples  and  specimens  of  those  interests.  It  may 
seem  strange  that  our  Blessed  Lord  should  make  use 
of  such  poor  and  vile  instruments  as  we  are  for  so  great 
a  work ;  but  it  is  the  same  Lord  who  called  simple 
fishermen  from  mending  their  nets,  to  be  His  apostles, 
and  to  convert  the  world.  True  it  is  we  have  sins 
enough  of  our  own  to  look  after,  that  we  have  imper- 
fections enough  to  turn  away  the  Heart  of  our  heavenly 
Spouse  from  us,  and  that  there  is  no  place  in  the  whole 
world  that  we  know  of,  where  the  interests  of  Jesus 
are  in  so  much  danger  as  they  are  in  our  own  souls. 
Yet  even  we  must  be  apostles ;  wo  unto  us  if  we  are 
not  apostles  !  We  must  be  serving  the  souls  of  others, 
even  while  we  have  so  much  to  do  for  our  own.  The 
Gospel  is  a  law  of  love,  and  the  Christian  life  is  a  life 


30  THE   INTERESTS   OF  JESUS. 


of  prayer.  As  the  apostle  tells  us,  we  must  make 
intercession  for  all  sorts  of  men.  Indeed,  we  shall  never 
prosper  with  the  work  in  our  own  souls,  if  we  do  not 
strive  to  advance  the  interests  of  Jesus  in  the  souls  of 
others.  Many  persons  complain  that  they  make  no 
way  in  religion,  and  that  they  do  not  get  on  with  the 
mortification  of  their  evil  passions,  their  sinful  infirmi- 
ties, and  their  tiresome  self-love.  They  are  just  where 
they  were  a  year  ago,  and  that  is  dishtartening.  This 
often  comes  to  pass,  because  they  are  selfish,  because 
they  only  care  to  stand  by  themselves.  They  do  not 
think  they  have  any  thing  to  do  with  the  souls  of 
others,  or  with  the  interests  of  Jesus,  or  with  interces- 
sory prayer ;  and  so  they  keep  on  a  low  level,  because 
they  do  nothing  to  merit  higher  graces.  The  Confra- 
ternity expects  other  things  of  us,  and  teaches  us  very 
difi'erently. 

But  it  is  important  to  remember  that  the  interests 
of  Jesus  do  not  follow  the  same  rule  as  the  interests  of 
the  world.  If  we  were  not  to  remember  this,  we  should 
soon  be  disheartened  at  the  little  good  we  seem  to  be 
doing.  The  interests  of  Jesus  are  for  the  most  part 
invisible  interests.  We  must  take  the  power  of  prayer 
on  faith.  "We  shall  never  know  till  the  last  day  all  the 
answers  there  have  been  to  our  prayers,  nor  how  they 
have  told  upon  the  Church  for  hundreds  and  hundreds 
of  years.  Look,  for  example,  at  St.  Stephen's  prayer, 
when  he  was  stoned  to  death.  It  obtained  the  conver- 
sion of  St.  Paul,  who  was  holding  the  clothes  of  Ste- 
phen's murcerers.  Only  think  of  all  St.  Paul  has  done, 
and  continues  to  do  daily,  and  will  go  on  doing  till  the 
end  of  the  world ;  and  all  he  does  St.  Stephen  does 
also,  for  it  is  all  St.  Stephen's  prayer.     So,  perhaps, 


THE   INTERESTS   OF  JESUS.  37 


somebody  asks  the  prayers  of  the  Confraternity  that 
obstacles  to  his  vocation  to  the  religious  life  or  the 
ecclesiastical  state  may  be  removed,  and  it  is  granted 
some  Friday  evening  to  our  prayers.  lie  becomes  a 
priest:  he  saves  hundreds  of  souls;  these  souls  save 
others,  some  by  becoming  priests  themselves,  some 
by  becoming  nuns,  some  by  becoming  holy  fathers 
and  mothers  in  the  world  ;  and  so  the  prayer  goes  on 
spreading  and  spreading,  and  may  very  likely  be  found 
actually  at  work  in  the  dead  of  that  night  when  all 
the  earth  will  be  awakened  to  see  our  Lord  coming  in 
the  east. 

Thus  you  must  not  look  too  much  to  visible  fruits 
and  to  public  results.  What  the  world  calls  misfor- 
tunes often  turn  out  to  be  the  good  fortune  of  Jesus. 
For  instance,  a  man  is  suffering  a  great  injustice  be- 
cause he  happens  to  be  a  Catholic.  You  pray  for  him. 
The  injustice  goes  on  ;  the  Protestants  outwardly  have 
the  best  of  it,  and  are  as  cruel  and  triumphant  as  ever. 
You  fancy  your  prayer  has  not  been  answered.  There 
could  not  be  a  greater  mistake.  Jesus  wants  to  make 
that  man  a  saint.  It.  is  better  for  him  to  be  the  help- 
less victim  of  that  injustice.  Meanwhile,  because  of 
your  prayers,  Jesus  has  granted  him  additional  grace, 
which  he  has  corresponded  to.  So  that,  actually,  for 
your  Pater  and  Ave  he  will  be  higher  in  heaven  to  all 
eternity  than  he  would  have  been.  There  will  be  a  gem 
sparkling  in  his  crown  that  would  not  else  have  been 
there ;  you  will  see  it  and  admire  it  in  heaven,  and  you 
will  know  it  was  your  Pater  and  Ave  that  put  it  there. 
So  it  is  with  the  Pope,  and  the  Church,  and  religious 
orders,  and  in  fact  every  thing  that  has  to  do  with 
Jesus.  Ilis  interests  do  not  follow  the  rules  of  the 
4 

Vhivbrsitt] 


%rFok^ 


THE   INTERESTS   OP  JESUS. 


world,  but  the  rules  of  grace.  We  must  measure  them 
by  different  measures,  and  not  use  the  measures  of  the 
world.  Our  measures,  weights,  and  coinage  must  all 
be  of  the  sanctuary.  Jesus  was  never  so  triumphant 
as  when  He  let  Himself  be  nailed  to  the  Cross  ;  yet 
the  silly  world  thought  it  had  it  all  its  own  way  then, 
and  had  carried  the  day  completely.  It  is  of  import- 
ance that  you  should  bear  this  in  mind.  It  is  of  faith 
that  God  always  answers  right  prayers,  and  in  a  way 
and  to  a  degree  beyond  our  most  enthusiastic  expecta- 
tions ;  but  He  does  not  yet  let  us  see  how.  We  must 
take  it  on  faith.  We  are  quite  sure  that  in  the  long 
run  we  shall  not  be  disappointed. 

We  must  still  say  a  few  words  on  the  way  in  which 
it  belongs  to  us  to  advance  the  interests  of  Jesus. 
There  are  many  ways  of  doing  this:  good  example, 
preaching,  writing  books,  lending  good  books,  arguing 
gently  with  people  and  persuading  them,  using  your 
influence  where  you  have  any,  and  exercising  your 
authority,  as  parents,  and  teachers,  and  masters.  All 
these  ways  are  good ;  and  if  we  truly  love  Jesus,  wc 
shall  never  neglect  any  one  of  them,  according  as  oppor- 
tunity presents,  and  in  keeping  with  the  modest  pro- 
priety of  our  condition  and  place  in  life.  Members  of 
the  Confraternity  may  and  should  use  these  means  as 
they  can.  But  the  way,  the  real  way,  of  the  Confra^ 
ternity  is  one  way,  and  only  one.     It  is  prayer. 

People  pray  very  little  now-a-days.  Indeed  it  is 
sad  to  see  how  little  faith  men  put  in  prayer.  They 
think  they  are  to  do  every  thing  by  tlieir  own  clever- 
ness, or  by  bustle,  fidget,  and  activity.  They  think 
the  same  things  which  made  England  a  great  proud 
country  will  suit  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  advance 


THE    INTERESTS   OP   JESUS.  39 


His  kingdom  upon  earth.  Every  thing  in  these  days 
goes  by  sight,  not  by  faith.  If  Catholics  undertake 
any  thing,  and  little  seems  to  come  of  it,  they  are  cast 
down,  and  think  it  has  come  to  nought.  A  mission  is 
given,  one  soul  is  saved,  or  one  sin  prevented ;  it  was  a 
fortnight's  work,  and  it  cost  ten  pounds  one  way  or 
another.  What  a  failure !  Yet  to  hinder  that  one  sin 
from  soiling  His  Father's  glory,  Jesus  is  ready,  to  come 
down  and  be  crucified  again !  If  we  cannot  publish 
figures,  and  show  great  results,  as  if  we  were  so  many 
Protestant  members  of  a  Bible  Society,  who  have  sent 
out,  say  a  million  bibles  to  China,  and  need  not  add  the 
fact  of  the  Chinese  ladies  of  a  whole  province  having 
made  them  into  slippers,  if  we  cannot  satisfy  the  world, 
or  what  is  called  the  English  public,  that  we  are  doing 
a  great  work  even  in  its  discerning  eyes,  we  all  set  to 
work  to  criticise  each  other,  and  sin ;  we  have  public 
meetings,  and  sin  ;  we  gossip,  and  sin ;  we  form  angry 
committees,  and  sin  ;  we  break  up  the  work,  and  sin ; 
and  then  everybody  writes  a  letter  to  the  newspapers, 
and,  as  likely  as  not,  sins  again ;  and  after  that  we  go 
on  as  before.  We  have  tried  to  do  a  good  work ;  and 
because  we  tried  on  natural  principles,  it  has  ended 
in  a  number  of  additional  sins.  All  this  is  for  want  of 
prayer,  and  for  want  of  faith  in  the  power,  of  prayer. 
So  remember — the  Confraternity  knows  nothing  of 
any  way  but  prayer.  We  may  be  sure,  that,  in  an 
unbelieving  age  and  country,  simple-hearted  prayer 
will  have  great  power  with  God,  and  an  especial 
reward.  They  who  remembered  Sion,  when  others 
were  forgetting  her,  were  wonderfully  remembered  by 
the  Lord:  so  let  us  pray  in  a  nation  that  is  forgetting 
prayer,  and  is  trusting  in  itself,  and  leaning  on  an  arm 


40  THE   INTERESTS   OF   JESUS. 


of  flesh,  and  God  -svill  be  with  us  as  He  has  ne^er 
been  before,  and  the  interests  of  Jesus  will  prosper  on 
the  earth.  Oh  the  interests  of  Jesus!  Would  to  God 
they  burned  at  our  hearts  all  the  day  long !  Life  is 
short,  and  we  have  much  to  do,  but  prayer  is  mighty, 
and  love  stronger  than  death,  and  so  let  us  all  set  to 
work,  with  singing  and  with  joy,  angels  and  men, 
sinners  and  saints,  for  the  interests,  the  dear  interests, 
the  sole  interests,  of  Jesus ! 


OHAPTKH  II. 


Spipt|[5  toit^  %t$m. 


'^-^jffifl'^'^^^S^ll^'^  Jacob  in  his  exile  dwelt  with 
'^^^i^^^^i^^^  Laban,  he  fell  in  love  with  Rachel, 
Laban's  daughter,  and  he  said  to 
her  father,  "I  will  serve  thee  seven 
years  for  Rachel,  thy  youngest 
daughter :"  and  the  Holy  Scripture 
adds,  "So  Jacob  served  seven  years 
for  Rachel,  and  they  seemed  but  a 
few  days,  for  the  greatness  of  his 
love."  Now,  do  we  not  often  find  life 
long,  and  our  days  to  pass  heavily  ?  Is 
not  perseverance  a  weary  thing,  and 
does  not  duty  many  a  time  turn  out 
irksome  and  uninteresting?  There  is 
such  a  thing  as  wishing  life  over  because  of 
a  holy  impatience  whereby  we  desire  to  be 
dissolved  and  to  be  with  Christ.  Sin,  and 
the  power  of  sinning,  and  the  chance  of  sin- 
ning, become  intolerable  to  us,  and  we  pine  to  be  with 
God,  as  one  pines  for  his  absent  love.  But  this  is  not 
what  I  mean.  Life,  and  especially  our  spiritual  life, 
often  drags  on  heavily  for  very  diflferent  reasons.  It 
IS  weary  work  to  be  always  fighting  with  our  evil 
passions,  and  disheartening  work  to  make  so  little 
way.  Temptations  tease  us,  and  scruples  worry  us ; 
4*  41 


42  SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 


and  to  be  dead,  buried,  and  safe  in  purgatory,  seems 
the  limit  to  our  peevish  ambition.  And  why  is  this  ? 
Because  we  do  not  serve  Jesus  for  love.  If  we  did,  it 
would  be  with  us  as  it  was  with  Jacob.  Years  would 
seem  but  days,  for  the  greatness  of  our  love.  Now  let 
us  see  if  it  is,  after  all,  so  impossible  for  us  to  serve 
our  dear  Lord  out  of  love. 

We  have  laid  it  down  as  a  rule,  that  the  business  of 
our  Confraternity  is  to  further  the  interests  of  Jesus, 
and  that  the  especial  way  to  further  them  is  by  prayer. 
Now,  the  very  fact  that  we  have  chosen  prayer  as  our 
especial  way  shows  us  something  more.  It  is  possible 
to  serve  God,  and  so  to  do  something  for  the  interests 
of  Jesus,  in  a  stiff,  dry,  awkward  way ;  just  as  we  can 
do  another  a  favour  ungracefully,  and  as  if  it  was  an 
annoyance,  only  we  cannot  very  well  help  ourselves. 
But  it  is  not  possible  to  serve  God  by  prayer,  or  to 
advance  the  interests  of  Jesus  by  prayer,  in  this  dry 
and  unaffectionate  way.  Prayer  with  no  heart  in  it  is 
not  prayer  at  all ;  it  is  either  irreverence  or  distrac- 
tion. Thus,  you  see,  the  Confraternity  binds  us  in  a 
sort  of  way  to  serve  Jesus  out  of  love ;  and  as  we  are 
very  fond  of  our  Confraternity,  and  wish  it  to  prosper, 
this  is  another  reason  why  we  should  see  whether  we 
cannot  serve  Jesus  out  of  love.  Oh,  if  only  one  of  you 
could  be  persuaded  to  do  this,  what  joy  would  there 
be  in  heaven,  what  delight  to  Mary,  what  consolation 
to  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus !  One  more  soul  in  the 
world  that  is  serving  Him  for  love !  Dear  Lord !  it  is 
worth  a  thousand  years  of  penance  to  obtain  for  him 
this  consolation  !  The  coloured  sunsets  and  the  starry 
heavens,  the  beautiful  mountains  and  the  shining  seas, 
the  fragrant  woods  and  the  painted  flowers,  they  are 


SYMPATHY    WITH   JESUS.  43 


not  half  so  beautiful  as  a  soul  that  is  serving  Jcsua 
out  of  love,  in  the  wear  and  tear  of  common,  unpoetio 
life. 

Every  one  would  wish  to  be  a  Saint.  This  surely  is 
true.  They  would  wish  to  love  God  as  much  as  the 
Saints  did,  and  to  have  always  that  abounding  and 
overflowing  joy  which  the  Saints  always  had,  and  to 
go  straight  to  heaven  without  any  delay  in  purgatory, 
and  to  be  high  up  in  heaven  because  of  their  exceeding 
love.  We  may  know  that  we  are  very  far  indeed  from 
being  Saints,  and  we  may  fear  there  is  very  little 
chance  of  our  ever  becoming  Saints.  We  may  have 
no  heart  for  their  great  austerities  and  bodily  mortifi- 
cations, no  courage  for  their  valiant  detachment  from 
the  world,  no  supernatural  appetite  for  crosses  and  suf- 
ferings such  as  they  had.  Still,  for  all  this,  who  would 
not  wish  to  be  a  Saint,  if  he  could  ? 

Now  I  am  not  going  to  bring  before  you  any  very 
hard  duties,  much  less  any  severe  austerities.  I  do 
not  want  to  drive  you  beyond  your  grace ;  but  I  wish 
you  to  observe  this.  Look  at  all  the  Saints  in  all  ages, 
no  matter  what  their  history  may  be,  or  their  lot  in 
life.  You  will  find,  when  you  compare  them  one  with 
another,  that  it  was  not  their  austerities  that  made 
them  Saints.  They  difier  very  much  from  one  another; 
yet  after  all  they  are  very  like.  Some  have  worked 
miracles  all  their  lives  long,  like  St.  Joseph  of  Cuper- 
tino, the  Franciscan ;  and  some  hardly  worked  any  at 
all,  as  was  the  case  with  St.  Vincent  of  Paul ;  and  as 
to  St.  John  the  Baptist,  of  whom  our  Lord  said  such 
marvellous  things,  he  never  worked  a  single  miracle. 
Some  Saints  have  practised  dreadful  austerities,  like 
St.  Rose  of  Lima ;  others  have  contented  themselves 


44  SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 


with  taking  God's  will  as  it  came  in  their  way,  and 
mortified  their  wills ;  this  was  the  case  with  St.  Francis 
of  Sales.  But  whether  they  did  miracles  or  not, 
whether  they  practised  bodily  penances  in  excess  or 
not,  still  they  have  a  peculiar  character  of  their  own. 
They  have  certain  tastes  and  inclitiations,  by  which 
we  could  always  know  them  if  we  met  them.  And  the 
delightful  thing  is,  that  their  chief  peculiarities  as 
Saints  lie  close  to  our  own  doors ;  and  we  can  make 
them  our  own  without  wonderful  miracles  or  frighten 
ing  penances. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  we  can  easily  be  equal  to  the 
Saints.  No  !  no !  but  what  I  say  is,  that  the  ways  in 
which  they  loved  God  and  served  the  interests  of  Jesus, 
and  the  tastes  which  made  them  so  dear  to  the  Sacred 
Heart,  are  quite  easily  in  our  power,  if  we  choose  to 
adopt  them.  Nay,  they  will  be  ours  at  once,  if  we  are 
only  fervent  members  of  the  Confraternity.  In  a 
word,  while  the  Saints  differ  in  almost  every  thing 
else,  there  are  three  things  in  which  they  all  agree ; 
and  these   are,  1.  Eagerness  for  the   glory  of  God ; 

2.  Touchiness    about  the    interests  of   Jesus ;    and 

3.  Anxiety  for  the  salvation  of  souls. 

But,  before  I  say  something  about  each  of  these  three 
things,  I  must  prevent  your  misunderstanding  me.  I 
should  not  wish  any  thing  I  have  said  to  make  any  one 
of  you  despair  of  being  Saints  before  you  die.  How- 
ever little  the  chance  may  be,  I  should  not  like  to  have 
hindered  a  Saint ;  it  would  be  any  thing  but  advancing 
the  dear  interests  of  Jesus,  which  is  the  sole  object  of 
this  little  treatise.  So  you  must  let  me  tell  you  some- 
thing of  one  of  the  Saints,  St.  Giacinta  Mariscotti, 
who  was  canonized  hy  Pius  VII.  in  1807.     She  was  an 


SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS.  45 


Italian  lady,  and  her  distinguishing  characteristic  as  a 
girl  was  a  great  love  of  fine  clothes  and  gay  orna- 
ments. Her  father  and  mother  sent  her  to  a  convent 
to  be  educated;  but  all  the  time  she  was  there  she 
would  occupy  herself  with  nothing  but  the  foolish 
frivolities  of  the  world.  All  her  girlhood  passed  away 
in  dissipation.  Then  she  wanted  to  get  married,  and 
because  her  sister  made  a  good  match,  and  she  none, 
she  was  filled  with  spite  and  envy.  Her  temper  was 
completely  soured,  and  she  became  so  disagreeable 
that  people  could  not  bear  to  go  near  her. 

Her  father  foolishly,  or  worse  than  foolishly,  wished 
her  to  become  a  nun  :  and  although  she  felt  no  voca- 
tion at  all,  she  thought  she  might  as  well  do  that  as 
any  thing  else ;  and  so  she  entered  a  convent  of  the 
third  order  of  St.  Francis  in  Viterbo.  Neither  her 
taste  nor  her  character  changed;  the  convent  seems 
to  have  been  as  lax  as  lax  could  be,  and  she  did  just 
what  she  pleased.  Good  St.  Alphonso  used  to  say  that 
it  was  easier  for  a  soul  to  be  saved  in  the  gayeties  of 
the  world,  than  in  a  relaxed  religious  order ;  and  few 
men  have  had  such  experience  of  those  matters  as  he. 

The  first  thing  our  Saint  did  was,  out  of  her  own 
money,  to  build  a  grand  room  for  herself.  She  fur- 
nished it  in  first-rate  style,  and  decorated  it,  her 
biographer  says,  quite  sumptuously.  She  neglected 
the  rule  ;  and  such  parts  of  it  as  she  chose  to  keep,  she 
kept,  as  may  be  supposed,  in  a  very  lukewarm  and 
unsatisfactory  way.  She  became  more  and  more  eaten 
up  with  vanity,  and  thought  of  nothing  but  herself  all 
the  day  long.  Queer  training  for  a  saint !  In  this 
way  she  lived  nearly  ten  years.  God  then  sent  her  a 
severe  illness.     She  called  for  the  Franciscan  monk, 


46  SYMPATHY   WITH    JESUS. 


who  was  the  confessor  of  the  convent ;  but  when  he 
beheld  the  magnificent  furniture  of  her  room  he  re- 
fused to  hear  her  confession,  and  told  her  paradise  was 
never  meant  for  such  as  she  was.  "  What,"  she  cried, 
"and  shall  I  not  be  saved?''  He  told  her  the  only 
chance  was  to  beg  pardon  of  God,  to  repair  the  scandal 
she  had  given,  and  to  begin  a  new  life.  She  burst 
into  tears,  and  descending  to  the  refectory,  where  all 
the  nuns  were  assembled  at  the  time,  she  prostrated 
herself  before  them,  and  begged  forgiveness  for  the 
scandal  she  had  given. 

Yet  for  all  this,  no  great  change,  or  at  least,  no  he- 
roic change,  took  place.  She  did  not  give  up  her  fine 
things  to  the  superioress  ;  but  she  gradually,  quite 
gradually,  improved  in  her  way  of  life.  Again  and 
again  it  was  necessary  for  God  to  send  her  illnesses, 
that  she  might  at  length  give  herself  wholly  up  to 
grace ;  and  at  last,  remorse  of  conscience  succeeded  in 
its  work  by  gentle  pertinacity,  sank  deeper  and  deeper, 
till  it  lost  itself  in  love,  and  she  became  a  Saint. 

Now  this  is  a  consoling  history.  We  are  too  apt  to 
think  that  Saints  are  people  who  have  been  extraordi- 
nary from  their  cradle  upward,  who,  by  special  grace, 
have  never  lost  their  baptismal  innocence,  and  have 
hardly  felt  the  rebellion  of  evil  passions,  and  certainly 
have  not  known  the  worst  of  all  struggles,  the  fight 
with  old  sinful  habits.  Or  if  this  be  not  the  case,  then 
we  think  of  them  as  persons  in  whose  behalf  God  has 
interfered  in  an  extraordinary  way,  as  in  the  conver- 
sion of  St.  Paul,  and  of  St.  Ignatius.  And  so  we  think 
it  is  out  of  all  question  our  becoming  Saints.  But  this 
story  of  St.  Giacinta  gives  us  quite  a  difi^rent  view; 
years  of  lukewarmness,  venial  sin,  and  unworthy  vani- 


SYMPATHY  WITH  JESUS.  47 


ty  are  succeeded  by  a  half-and-half  conversion,  fol- 
lowed up  by  some  other  little  conversions  afterward, 
just  as  it  may  have  been  with  so  many  of  us. 

See  how  this  history  illustrates  an  excellent  and  con- 
soling remark  of  Father  Baker's.  (Sancta  Sophia,  i. 
175.)  "However,  as  for  souls  that  for  external  re- 
spects have  embraced  a  religious  life,  let  them  not, 
therefore,  in  a  desperate  humour,  conclude  that  no 
good  can  come  to  them  by  it  so  unworthily  under- 
taken ;  but  rather  hope  that,  by  a  special  providence 
of  God,  they  were  even  against  their  own  intentions 
and  wills  brought  into  a  course  of  life,  to  which  if, 
however,  afterward  they  will  duly  correspond,  it  will 
prove  an  infinite  blessing  unto  them.  For  such  oft- 
times  have  proved  great  saints,  after  that  God  gave 
them  light  to  see  their  perverse  intentions,  and  grace 
to  rectify  them:  by  which  means  they,  beginning  in 
the  jlesli,  have  ended  in  the  spirit.'^  In  religious  houses, 
or  in  the  ecclesiastical  state,  or  even  in  a  devout  life 
in  the  world,  how  many  of  us  may  take  heart  from 
these  words,  and  this  example,  to  make  a  fresh  begin- 
ning, even  though  we  may  have  begun  and  begun  a 
score  of  times  already !  All  we  want  now  is  the  like- 
ness of  St.  Giacinta's  later  years. 

And  how  shall  we  reach  to  Giacinta's  later  years 
quietly  and  easily?  Why,  by  cultivating  the  three 
characteristics  of  the  saints  mentioned  before,  eager- 
ness for  the  glory  of  God,  touchiness  about  the  inte- 
rests of  Jesus,  and  anxiety  for  the  salvation  of  souls ; 
for  in  these  three  things  sympathy  with  Jesus  consists, 
and  sympathy  is  at  once  the  fruit  and  food  of  love,  and 
love  is  sanctity,  and  a  saint  is  simply  one  who  loves 

tthitbhsitt; 


48  SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 


Jesus  above  the  common  run  of  pious  men,  and  has 
bad  unusual  gifts  given  him  in  return. 

1.  Eagerness  for  the  glory  of  God.  It  is  the  first 
and  fundamental  truth  of  religion,  that  we  are  hero  in 
the  world  for  no  other  end  than  to  glorify  God  by  the 
salvation  of  our  souls.  This  is  our  single  purpose,  our 
one  work:  all  else  is  beside  the  mark.  All  other  crea- 
tures either  help  us  or  hinder  us  in  this  one  work,  and 
must  be  dealt  with  accordingly.  From  this  first  prin- 
ciple, and  by  the  two  precepts  of  love  of  God  and  love 
of  our  neighbour,  we  reach  the  duty  of  seeking  the 
glory  of  God  in  the  salvation  of  our  neighbour's  soul 
as  well  as  of  our  own.  Now,  it  is  plain  that  if  we  love 
God  we  shall  be  eager  for  His  glory,  and  the  more  we 
love  Ilim  the  more  eager  we  shall  be.  What  we  have 
set  our  hearts  upon  we  are  sure  to  follow  out  hotly  and 
perseveringly.  When,  then,  a  man  comes  to  love  God 
devoutly,  he  becomes  what  we  call  a  man  of  one  idea. 
He  looks  at  every  thing  in  one  point  of  view.  He  con- 
siders trades  and  professions  as  so  many  necessary 
evils,  as  distracting  him  from  his  one  work.  He  is 
seeking  everywhere  and  in  every  thing  the  glory  of 
Grod.  It  is  his  last  thought  at  night,  his  first  on 
waking.  If  he  obtains  any  power,  authority,  or  influ- 
ence, his  first  impulse  is.  How  shall  I  use  this  to  the 
glory  of  God  ?  If  a  calamity  befalls  him,  this  is  the 
first  question  he  asks  of  himself.  If  a  sum  of  money 
is  Left  him,  this  is  the  first  idea  it  suggests  to  his  mind. 
Ele  interests  himself  about  the  Church  and  the  poor, 
about  education  and  crime,  because  these  matters  are 
full  to  overflowing  of  God's  glory.  For  instance,  a 
man  of  the  world  looks  at  the  immense  system  of  rail- 
ways and  steam   navigation,  which   now  covers  the 


SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS.  49 


earth  as  with  a  net.  He  calculates  its  probable  effect 
on  governments,  popular  rights,  science,  literature, 
commerce,  civilization.  The  problem  fascinates  him. 
The  man  of  God  looks  on  the  same  thing,  and  thinks 
how  it  will  forward  missionary  enterprise,  how  it  will 
bring  Catholics  together,  how  it  will  facilitate  commu- 
nication with  the  Holy  See,  which  is  the  freedom  of 
the  Church,  and  how  in  these,  and  many  like  ways, 
God  will  have  glory  out  of  it  all.  When  a  man's 
mind  is  engrossed  in  politics,  whether  in  the  govern- 
ment or  in  the  opposition,  every  thing  that  happens 
comes  before  him  simply  with  reference  to  his  one  ab- 
sorbing interest.  The  state  of  the  crops,  the  chance 
of  a  bad  harvest,  our  foreign  relations,  internal  discon- 
tent, strikes  of  workmen,  papal  bulls — his  view  of 
them  is,  how  will  they  affect  the  political  party  with 
which  I  am  acting  ?  So  it  is  with  the  man  who  loves 
God.  His  one  view  of  every  thing,  however  unlikely, 
has  to  do  with  the  glory  of  God.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  he  is  always  thinking  of  it  with  an  actual 
and  present  intention.  That  would  be  almost  impos- 
sible, almost  beyond  the  condition  of  man.  But  I 
mean  that  it  is  his  most  frequent  thought,  and  that  he 
recurs  to  it  ever  and  again,  as  a  man  does  to  something 
he  loves  affectionately,  and  desires  intensely. 

Now  this  is  not  very  hard.  There  is  no  austerity 
in  it.  We  can  begin  it  quietly,  take  it  easily  at  first, 
and  then  let  it  grow  upon  us,  just  as  habits  will  grow. 
We  might  make  a  little  prayer  to  God  every  morning 
for  love  to  seek  His  glory,  and  for  light  to  find  it  all 
day  long.  We  might  renew  our  intention  twice  a  day 
to  seek  His  glory.  We  might  ask  it  in  communion, 
and  at  the  end  of  our  rosaries,  and  in  our  esamen  of 
D  5 


60  SYMPATHY  WITH   JESUS. 


conscience.  If  we  often  forget  it,  never  mind;  it  will 
come  by  use;  and  God  Himself  will  begin  to  help  us 
wonderfully,  when  we  have  persevered  for  a  few 
months  in  the  practice.  But  not  before,  remember; 
for  this  is  His  way,  to  wait  awhile,  and  see  if  we  perse- 
vere, though  He  is  really  helping  us  all  the  time,  or 
else  we  never  could  persevere ;  only  He  will  help  us  in 
another  way  later  on.  This  is  not  hard;  yet  it  would 
bring  us  up  many  miles  nearer  the  saints,  and  oh  what 
interests  of  Jesus  would  it  not  advance,  by  the  time  a 
year  was  gone  round! 

2.  Touchiness  about  the  interests  of  Jesus.  I  use 
this  word  purposely,  because  it  so  exactly  expresses  my 
meaning,  and  I  do  not  know  any  other  word  which 
expresses  it  so  well.  We  know  perfectly  what  it  is  to 
be  touchy  about  our  own  interests,  or  the  interests  of 
those  who  are  near  and  dear  to  us.  We  fire  up  at  the 
hint  or  suspicion  of  an  attack.  We  are  always  on  the 
look  out  with  a  watchful  jealousy,  as  if  everybody  we 
met  had  a  design  upon  us.  We  are  quick  to  complain, 
and  quick  to  discern.  Sometimes,  if  we  do  not  take 
care,  we  judge  others  censoriously,  or  we  lose  our 
temper  and  speak  rudely.  Now  apply  all  this  to  the 
interests  of  Jesus,  and  you  will  get  a  very  fair  idea  of 
what  it  is  to  be  a  saint.  Yet  even  good  people  do  not 
understand  it,  and  condemn  it  as  extravagance  and 
indiscretion ;  simply  because  they  do  not  know  what  it 
is  to  serve  God  with  a  service  of  love.  A  man  who 
is  thus  touchy  about  the  interests  of  Jesus,  hears  of 
some  scandal,  and  it  makes  him  perfectly  miserable. 
He  broods  over  it,  day  and  night;  he  talks  querulously 
about  it ;  it  takes  the  sunshine  out  of  his  life  for  the 
time  being.     His  friends  cannot  conceive  why  he  should 


SYMPATHY  WITH   JESUS.  51 


make  so  much  of  it,  or  take  it  so  to  heart.  It  is  no 
affair  of  his,  and  there  is  no  blame  attaching  to  him  in 
the  matter.  They  are  ready  to  accuse  him  of  affec- 
tation;  but  they  do  not  see  that  all  his  love  is  for 
Jesus,  and  that  it  is  positive  pain  to  him  that  his  dear 
Lord's  interests  should  be  injured.  They  could  fret  for 
a  month  over  being  vexatiously  entangled  in  a  spiteful 
and  unjust  lawsuit ;  but  what  is  that  to  the  least  hin- 
derance  thrown  in  the  way  of  the  interests  of  Jesus  ? 
Surely  a  man  who  does  not  see  this  can  hardly  be  a 
Christian. 

Another  way  in  which  this  touchiness  aboat  the 
interests  of  Jesus  is  shown,  is  in  the  delicate  perception 
and  keen  abomination  of  heresy  and  false  doctrine. 
The  purity  of  the  true  faith  is  one  of  the  very  dearest 
interests  of  Jesus ;  and,  consequently,  one  who  truly 
loves  his  Lord  and  Master  is  pained  beyond  the  power 
of  words  by  the  expression  of  false  doctrine,  especially 
among  Catholics.  Opinions  about  our  Lord's  ignorance, 
or  in  depreciation  of  His  grace,  or  in  derogation  of  His 
Mother's  honour,  or  lowering  the  yacraments,  or  dis- 
honouring ever  so  little  the  prerogatives  of  His  Vicar 
upon  earth — these  things,  merely  in  passing  conversa- 
tion, sting  him  so  that  he  feels  even  bodily  suffering 
from  them.  Unreflecting  people  are  almost  scandalized 
at  this ;  yet  if  they  heard  the  honour  or  chastity  of 
their  mother  or  sister  called  in  question  with  coarse  or 
wanton  rudeness,  there  is  hardly  any  violence  short  of 
bloodshed  which  would  not  be  thought  warrantable 
and  creditable.  Yet  what  is  my  mother's  honour  to  the 
dignity  of  Jesus,  or  my  sister's  good  name  to  the  least 
tittle  of  our  Blessed  Lady's  majesty?  and  is  there  not 
to  me  more  of  the  mother's  love,  and  of  the  sister's 


52  SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 


affection,  in  the  See  of  Peter,  than  in  all  my  flesli-and- 
blood  relations  put  together  ?  I  should  not  be  bound 
to  die,  to  seal  with  my  blood  my  conviction  of  my 
mother's  honour ;  but  I  should  be  a  wretch  if  I  shrank 
from  dying  for  the  lawful  honour  of  the  Holy  See. 
Thus  you  will  not  find  a  single  saint  who  has  not 
cherished  this  pain  of  love  in  his  heart  of  hearts,  this 
inability  to  endure  the  sound  of  heresy  or  false 
doctrine ;  and  where  this  is  not,  then,  as  sure  as  the 
sun  is  in  the  heavens,  the  love  of  Jesus  is  but  poor  and 
weak  in  the  heart  of  man. 

The  same  touchiness  may  be  shown,  as  occasion 
reqwires,  about  all  the  interests  of  Jesus  mentioned  in 
the  last  chapter.  One  remark,  however,  must  be 
made.  It  will  often  happen  when  a  man's  love  of  our 
Lord  is  beyond  the  formed  habits  of  virtue  he  may 
have  at  the  moment,  that  he  is  indiscreet,  or  impatient, 
or  rude,  or  bitter.  He  suspects  where  there  is  no 
ground  for  suspicion,  and  he  does  not  bear  with  the 
slowness  or  coldness  of  others,  as  he  would  do  if  the 
habit  of  charity  were  more  perfectly  formed  in  him. 
This  often  brings  discredit  on  devotion ;  for  there  are 
no  persons  judged  with  more  unfeeling  rigour  than 
those  who  make  profession  of  a  devout  life.  But  they 
must  have  their  faults  and  imperfections ;  they  must 
have  the  less  lovely  stages  of  the  spiritual  life  to  pass 
through ;  and  it  must  be  their  consolation  that  many  a 
time  when  men  blame  them,  Jesus  does  not :  and  the 
very  imperfections  of  their  young  love  are  dear  to  Him, 
while  the  sage  criticism  and  pompous  moderation  of 
their  censors  are  hateful  in  His  eyes. 

Now,  it  would  not  be  hard  to  cultivate  this  touchi- 
ness about  the  interests  of  Jesus  ;  and  yet  it  is  one  of 


SYMPATHY    WITH   JESUS.  63 


the  chief  instincts  of  the  saints.  Is  it  not  worth  while 
trying?  Can  there  be  a  pleasure  in  life  so  great  as  lov- 
ing Jesus  and  serving  Him  for  love  ?  AVe  may  begin 
to-day :  there  is  no  hardship  in  it ;  no  sudden  or  vio- 
lent change  which  we  need  to  make  in  our  lives  ;  we  have 
only  got  to  think  a  little  more  about  love,  and  to  ask  for 
more  love,  and  then  we  are  fairly  on  the  road.  With- 
out any  tie  or  obligation,  the  Confraternity  enables  us 
to  start  at  once. 

3.  Anxiety  for  the  salvation  of  souls.  This  is  the 
third  and  last  instinct  of  the  saints  which  puts  us  in 
sympathy  with  Jesus.  The  world  and  the  material  in- 
terests of  the  world  are  all  against  us.  They  carry  us 
away.  What  we  see  is  so  much  more  impressive  than 
what  we  believe.  Yet  Jesus  came  into  the  world  for 
the  saving  of  souls  ;  He  died  for  them ;  He  shed  His 
Precious  Blood  for  them.  In  proportion  as  souls  are 
saved  His  interests  prosper ;  in  proportion  as  they  are 
lost,  His  interests  as  the  Saviour  of  souls  are  injured. 
The  soul  is  the  only  thing  worth  caring  for.  Only  think 
what  it  is  to  be  lost,  lost  eternally !  Who  can  fathom 
the  horror  of  it?  Who  can  rightly  picture  to  himself 
the  utterness  of  the  ruin,  the  breadth  of  the  wretched- 
ness, the  unendurableness  of  the  torture,  the  helpless 
wildness  of  the  despair  ?  Yet  St.  Theresa  saw  the  souls 
of  men  flocking  daily  through  the  doors  of  hell,  like 
the  showers  of  dry  leaves  which  the  wind  drives  about 
in  autumn.  And  Jesus  hung  His  three  hours  upon 
the  Cross  for  every  one  of  those  lost  souls  !  And  they 
might  all  have  been  now  gleaming  bright  and  beautiful 
in  the  courts  of  heaven !  And  they  loved  us,  perhaps, 
and  we  loved  them,  and  there  was  much  to  love  in 
them !    Generous,  kind,  unselfish,  they  once  were ;  but 

6* 


54  SYMPATHY  WITH   JESUS. 


they  loved  the  world,  and  were  ruled  by  their  own  pas- 
sions, and,  though  they  hardly  thought  of  it,  they  cru- 
cified our  Lord  afresh.  And  now  they  are  lost — lost 
eternally ! 

What  wonder  His  servants  should  yearn  for  those 
over  whom  Jesus  yearned  himself !  Thus  it  is  they  are 
always  alert  about  missions,  schools,  religious  orders, 
retreats,  indulgences,  and  jubilees.  They  are  full  of 
plans,  or,  if  not  of  plans,  at  least  of  prayers.  They  care 
for  little  else  but  souls.  They  sacrifice  all  for  souls. 
No  matter  what  rebus's  they  meet  with,  what  disap- 
pointments they  find,  or  into  what  mistakes  they  fall 
at  first.  They  are  all  for  souls.  They  begin  afresh 
every  day  to  plan  and  plot  for  souls.  They  are  not  cast 
down  because  they  do  not  see  clearly  there  will  be  mo- 
ney or  men  to  go  on  with  all  the  good  works  they  plan  ; 
but  their  consolation  is,  that  all  work  for  souls  is  com- 
plete work  by  itself,  and  for  as  long  as  it  lasts  ;  because 
all  dispensing  of  grace  and  of  the  Precious  Blood  is  a 
desirable  and  blessed  thing  in  itself.  Hence,  the 
Church,  the  mother  of  souls,  encourages  the  temporary 
stimulants  of  retreats,  missions,  and  jubilees;  because 
all  these  things  are  complete  by  themselves  and  for  the 
time.  While  some  talk  and  take  views,  and  criticise, 
and  despond,  and  weaken  the  hands  and  hearts  of 
others,  those  who  love  Jesus  work  on  in  simplicity,  not 
thinking  of  the  morrow. 

Volumes  might  be  written  about  this  passion  for 
souls.  It  must  come  where  there  is  a  true  love  of  Je- 
sus. It  is  not  the  rule  for  Peter  only,  but  for  all  who 
love.  When  thou  art  converted,  confirm  thy  brethren, 
and,  Lovest  thou  Me  more  than  these  ?  Feed  ray  sheep. 
And  have  not  we,  each  of  us,  many  little  ways  by 


SYMPATHY  WITH  JESUS.  55 


which  we  can  help  in  the  saving  of  souls  ?  And  in  in- 
tercession, at  least,  is  not  the  whole  Church  open  to  tha 
genial  and  immense  influence  of  our  prayers,  as  much 
as  it  is  to  the  Pope  himself? 

The  saints,  then,  are  made  up  chiefly  of  these  three 
things : — Eagerness  for  the  glory  of  God, — touchiness 
about  the  interests  of  Jesus, — and  anxiety  for  the  sal- 
vation of  souls.  These  three  things  make  a  most 
beautiful  and  angelic  character,  and  go  further  than 
any  thing  else  to  assure  us  of  our  predestination.  They 
are  the  three  things  which  the  Confraternity  helps  to 
form  in  us.  Yet  we  have  seen  how  easy  they  are,  if  only 
we  will  learn  to  love  Jesus,  and  to  serve  Him  for  love. 
There  is  neither  sex,  nor  age,  nor  station  which  is  not 
equally  convenient  for  the  practice  of  these  three 
things.  And  what  a  difierence  it  would  make  in  the 
world  if  a  few  people  would  take  them  up  seriously  and 
carry  them  out  quietly  in  daily  life  and  in  daily  prayer. 

When  a  man  dies  in  England,  his  friends  often  say 
of  him,  in  praise  of  his  diligence,  energy,  and  concen- 
tration :  "Well,  he  lived  simply  to  carry  through  that 
important  line  of  railway ;  or — his  only  object  was  to 
extort  from  the  government  a  more  scientific  education 
for  the  people ;  or — ^he  devoted  himself  to  the  cause  of 
Free-trade ;  or — he  was  a  martyr  to  his  exertions  in 
behalf  of  Protection.  It  was  his  one  idea ;  it  grew  with 
his  growth  ;  he  could  think  of  nothing  else ;  he  spared 
neither  time  nor  expense  to  advance  ever  so  little  his 
favourite  cause,  and  the  interest  which  he  had  wedded; 
it  was  his  monomania.  He  did  his  work  in  his  day, 
and  he  did  it  well,  because  he  was  heart  and  soul  in  it; 
and  the  world  is  in  debt  to  him  for  it.  Now,  why  should 
it  not  be  said  of  us : — Well,  he  is  gone  ;  he  was  a  man 


56  SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 


of  one  idea  ;  he  cared  fcr  nothing  but  that  God's  king* 
dom  should  come,  and  His  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it 
is  in  heaven.  He  Avas  eaten  up  with  this ;  waking  or 
sleeping,  it  was  always  upon  him ;  nothing  daunted 
him ;  he  spared  neither  time  nor  expense  for  his  hobby ; 
and  when  neither  time  nor  money  were  at  his  disposal, 
he  besieged  heaven  with  prayers.  He  took  no  interest 
in  any  thing  else ;  it  was  meat  and  drink  to  him,  and  it 
quite  mastered  him  ;  and  now  he  is  gone.  Yes  !  he  is 
gone ;  but  whereas  the  other  man  left  behind  him  his 
railway  and  his  cheap  bread,  our  friend  has  taken  all 
his  love,  and  pains,  and  prayers,  away  with  him  to  the 
judgment-seat  of  Jesus  ;  and  what  they  have  done  for 
him  there  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  man's 
heart  conceived. 

Now,  do  think  of  these  three  things,  these  easy  in- 
stincts of  the  saints,  this  serving  Jesus  out  of  love. 
Would  you  like  to  see  how  they  work  in  a  good  man's 
heart,  even  in  very  little  matters  ?  There  was  an  old 
Spanish  Jesuit,  who  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  make 
up  his  mind  whether  it  was  better  to  gain  an  indul- 
gence for  the  soul  in  purgatory  that  was  most  neglected 
and  forgotten,  or  for  the  soul  that  was  nearest  to  its  re- 
lease and  entrance  into  glory.  There  was  a  puzzle ;  both 
were  sweet  acts  of  charity,  but  which  was  the  sweetest  ? 
which  would  Jesus  most  approve?  He  was  such 
a  kind-hearted  man,  that  good  father,  that  he  inclined 
very  much  to  the  poor,  neglected  soul,  just  because  it 
was  80  neglected ;  it  went  to  his  heart  to  pass  over  that 
forgotten  soul.  But  at  last  he  decided  in  favour  of  the 
other ;  and  now  see  the  reasons.  Although  it  seems 
the  greater  mercy  to  offer  it  for  the  other  soul,  because 
it  is  most  in  want,  seeing  that  it  is  in  greater  misery,* 


SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS.  57 


notwithstanding,  charity  is  a  greater  virtue  than  mercy, 
and  it  is  a  greater  act  of  charity  to  offer  the  indulgence 
for  the  soul  that  was  most  just  and  loved  God  most, 
looking  simply  to  the  greater  glory  of  the  Divine  Ma- 
jesty as  the  Creator  of  that  soul ;  for  it  is  nearest  to  its 
entry  into  heaven,  where  it  will  at  once  begin  to  glorify 
God  immensely  by  its  praises  and  its  bliss.  Here  was 
eagerness  for  the  glory  of  God.  Again,  the  soul  is  not 
properly  the  full  conquest  of  Jesus  till  it  is  safely 
landed  in  heaven,  and  our  dear  Redeemer  presents  it 
to  the  Eternal  Father  as  a  trophy  of  His  Sacred  Pas- 
sion ;  and  was  it  not  better  to  keep  the  poor,  neglected 
soul  waiting  in  purgatory  than  to  keep  Jesus  waiting 
in  heaven  ?  and  besides,  all  this  sadness  about  passing 
over  the  forgotten  soul,  would  it  not  make  Jesus  smile 
and  something  would  be  done  for  that  poor  soul  ?  Here 
was  touchiness  about  the  interests  of  Jesus.  And  fur- 
thermore, thought  our  good  old  Jesuit,  the  sooner  this 
soul,  that  is  so  near  heaven,  gets  into  heaven,  the 
sooner  will  it  begin  to  gain  all  manner  of  graces  from 
God  for  my  soul,  and  for  the  souls  of  sinners  upon  earth. 
Here  was  anxiety  for  the  salvation  of  souls.  And  so 
away  went  the  indulgence  to  the  soul  that  was  nearest 
its  release,  not  without  a  very  fervent  sigh,  and  a  very 
wistful  look  to  Mary,  and  a  comfortable  suspicion  that 
Jesus  would  do  something  extra  for  the  poor  forgotten 
soul. 

The  decision  of  the  good  father  seems  to  have  high 
authority ;  for  among  the  revelations  made  to  Sister 
Francesca  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  a  Spanish  The- 
resian  nun,  it  was  told  her  that  immense  numbers  of 
souls  issued  from  purgatory  on  the  evening  of  All 
Souls'  Day ;  and  that  they  were  mostly  those  who  were 


58  SYMPATHY  WITH  JESUS; 


near  to  glory,  among  whom  God  distributed  tiie  suf- 
frages of  the  Universal  Church  on  that  day.*  Yet,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  know  that  St.  Vincent  of  Paul's 
special  devotion  was  to  the  most  destitute  soul.f  But 
then  destitute  souls  were  his  line ;  he  was  their  pro- 
perty and  possession. 

The  Jesuit  had  been  carefully  taught  that  he  was  to 
have  a  reason  for  every  thing  he  did.  I  do  not  say  you 
are  bound  to  be  so  particular ;  but  anyhow,  it  shows 
how  our  three  things  can  insinuate  themselves  into  a 
pious  mind,  and  influence  its  minutest  actions  and  most 
secret  devotions.  And  this  is  the  simple  object  of  this 
treatise.  I  want  to  collect  for  you  from  the  lives  of 
the  saints  and  the  works  of  spiritual  writers  a  number 
of  easy  and  interesting  practices,  which  will  help  you 
to  form  these  three  things  in  your  souls,  so  as  to  be 
advancing  the  interests  of  our  dear  Lord  every  hour 
of  your  lives,  and  yet  all  the  while,  in  the  pleasantest 
manner  possible,  becoming  something  like  saints  your- 
selves. 

You  can  take  your  choice  of  these  practices.  None 
of  them  are  of  any  obligation.  All  is  free.  You  are 
not  even  bound  to  choose,  if  you  choose  at  all,  the 
highest,  best,  and  most  perfect :  for  it  is  quite  possible 
such  would  not  be  best  for  you.  Take  what  is  most 
to  your  taste  ;  there  is  no  need  to  turn  your  devotions 
into  mortifications.  This  is  one  of  the  uncatholic  no 
tions  converts  should  take  pains  to  drive  out  of  their 
heads.  It  sounds  fine,  but  it  works  ill,  and  it  ends  in 
carelessness  and  lax  ways.    I  want  to  beguile  you  into 

•  Vit.  171. 

tPeInt  parses  Ecrlts,  p.  268. 


SYMPATHY  WITH  JESUS.  59 


eerving  Jesus  out  of  love,  and  so  I  want  you  to  enjoy 
yourselves  and  follow  your  bent  in  your  devotions. 

Before  concluding  this  chapter,  I  am  so  anxious  to 
get  your  minds  full  of  the  principles  I  have  been  lay- 
ing down,  that  I  will  finish  by  illustrating  them  in  a 
question  familiar  to  you  all.  Some  people,  you  know, 
give  all  their  indulgences  to  the  souls  in  purgatory ; 
others  keep  them  all  to  themselves ;  and  one  party  has 
no  right  to  interfere  with  the  other.  What  business 
has  any  one  to  say  we  are  not  free  to  do  what  the 
Church  says  we  are  free  to  do  ?  Nevertheless,  I  am 
going  to  take  a  side  in  this  matter  for  the  moment ;  it 
will  throw  great  light  on  the  three  things  I  am  advo- 
cating ;  and  I  shall  beep  strictly  to  what  theologians 
and  spiritual  writers  have  said. 

Grace  is  such  a  great  thing  that  we  ought  to  try  to 
increase  it  in  all  possible  ways  ;  and  there  are  few 
ways  in  which  we  can  increase  it  more  rapidly  than  by 
turning  satisfaction  into  merit.  This  is  done  by  gain- 
ing indulgences  for  the  souls  in  purgatory.  By  this 
devotion  we  acquire  great  spiritual  treasures,  and  it  is 
acceptable  to  God  while  it  is  profitable  to  ourselves. 
Let  us  run  through  some  of  the  fruits  of  this  devotion, 
so  as  to  animate  ourselves  to  be  more  liberal  toward 
these  daughters  of  God  and  spouses  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
to  assist  them  with  prayers,  and  with  the  satisfaction 
of  our  good  works,  ofiering  it  all  for  them  without  fear- 
ing that  we  shall  thereby  lose  any  of  it.  In  truth  he 
will  gain  immensely  who  shall  not  reserve  to  himself 
any  part  of  his  satisfaction,  or  any  of  his  indulgences, 
but  shall  ofier  them  all  for  the  holy  spouses  of  our  dear 
Redeemer  who  are  detained  in  those  terrible  pains. 

The  first  fruit  is  the  great  increase  of  our  merits  by 


OY  TETB 

WBITBESITt: 


60  SYMPATHY   WITH  JESUS. 


this ;  for,  of  the  three  things  which  the  good  works  of 
the  just  include,  merit,  impetration,  and  satisfaction, 
the  greatest  of  all  is  merit ;  for  by  it  we  become  more 
acceptable  to  God,  and  more  His  friends,  receiving 
greater  grace,  and  so  acquiring  a  new  title  to  greater 
glory.  Doubtless,  then,  if  a  man  could  turn  all  the 
satisfaction  of  his  good  works  into  so  much  fresh  merit, 
over  and  above  the  merit  there  was  there  before,  he 
would  be  a  gainer  by  it,  and  for  this  reason : — the 
glory  of  the  blessed  is  without  comparison  a  greater 
good  than  the  pains  of  purgatory  are  an  evil ;  and  so 
the  right  to  greater  glory  is  a  better  thing  than  the 
right  to  less  pain.  He,  then,  who  offers  the  satisfac- 
tion of  his  good  works  and  his  indulgences  for  the  soul 
in  purgatory,  does  just  this : — he  converts  his  satisfac- 
tion into  merit.  In  this  charity  is  an  heroic  act  of 
great  virtue,  by  which  he  will  acquire  eternal  life  by 
means  of  that  satisfaction  turned  into  merits  which  is 
no  help  at  all  as  simple  satisfaction  toward  eternal 
life.  As  satisfaction,  it  would  not  have  helped  him 
one  iota  to  that,  but  he  makes  it  do  so  by  turning  it 
into  merit,  and  at  the  same  time  helping  others.  Now 
this  deserves  reflection ;  for,  besides  the  fact  that  glory 
is  a  greater  good  than  purgatory  is  an  evil,  we  must 
remember  that  the  increase  of  glory  is  a  thing  which 
is  eternal,  whereas  the  lightening  of  purgatory  is  only 
temporal,  for  purgatory  itself  is  merely  temporal ;  so 
that  the  distance  between  the  increase  of  glory  and 
the  lightening  of  purgatory  is  as  good  as  infinite. 
And  yet  to  enjoy  eternal  goods,  even  in  the  very  lowest 
degree,  would  be  cheaply  purchased  by  the  endurance 
of  the  greatest  temporal  evils.  We  must  add  to  this, 
that  we  ought  in  all  things  to  do  that  which  is  most 


SYMPATHY   WITH  JESUS.  61 


pleasing  in  the  sight  of  God,  not  seeking  our  own  in- 
terest or  convenience,  but  His  greater  good  pleasure. 
To  please  God  is  a  better  thing  than  to  avoid  suffer- 
ing ;  yet  a  man  who  keeps  his  satisfaction  and  indul- 
gences to  himself,  does  so  from  a  desire  of  avoiding 
suffering ;  whereas,  he  who  offers  them  all  for  the  souls 
in  purgatory  thereby  makes  himself  dearer  to  God,  by 
a  refinement  of  love  in  this  heroic  exercise  of  mercy 
and  charity,  which  he  was  not  bound  to,  but  does  out 
of  the  sweet  freedom  of  his  own  will. 

The  suffering  of  the  holy  souls  is  without  any  gain 
or  profit  to  themselves,  w^hereby  they  can  increase  their 
merits,  and  so  long  as  they  are  detained  in  purgatory, 
so  long  is  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  deprived  of  her  citi- 
zens, and  the  Church  upon  earth  of  new  protectors  and 
advocates  with  God.  Hence  comes  another  fruit  of  this 
devotion.  The  soul  that  we  release  from  purgatory  is 
laid  under  a  particular  obligation  to  us,  both  because 
of  the  singular  benefit  it  receives  from  entering  all  the 
sooner  into  glory,  and  also  because  of  the  tremendous 
sufferings  from  which  it  is  delivered.  Thus  it  is  bound 
to  obtain  for  its  benefactors  perpetual  graces  and 
blessings  from  God.  The  blessed  know  that  the  good 
they  have  received  is  infinite,  and  being  most  grateful, 
they  strive  to  show  gratitude  proportionate  to  the 
greatness  of  their  enjoyment.  Thus  he  who  gives  his 
indulgences  to  the  holy  souls  will  have  so  many  agents 
in  the  court  of  heaven  to  look  after  his  eternal  inte- 
rests ;  and  it  is  a  greater  good  for  a  man  to  secure  his 
salvation  in  this  life  through  the  graces  obtained  for 
him  by  this  multitude  of  heavenly  protectors,  than  to 
avoid  the  risk  of  being  somewhat  longer  in  purgatory, 
because  he  has  given  away  his  satisfaction  and  indul- 


SYMPATHY  WITH  JESUS. 


gences.  But  we  gain  more  than  th0  friendship  of  the 
souls  we  deliver ;  we  gain  the  love  of  their  guardian 
angels,  and  of  the  saints  to  whom  those  souls  were 
specially  devoted ;  and  we  become  also  more  dear  to 
the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  because  of  His  pleasure  at 
the  release  of  His  dear  spouse  and  her  entry  into  His 
celestial  joy. 

But  there  is  a  third  fruit  of  this  devotion  which  is 
very  much  to  our  purpose.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  have 
some  one  in  heaven  who  shall  love,  praise,  and  glorify 
God  on  our  behalf.  He  who  loves  God  fervently  and 
tenderly  can  never  rest  without  doing  all  he  can  that 
the  infinite  Majesty  of  God  should  be  exalted  and  glo- 
rified. Yet  with  all  the  miseries  and  sins  of  this  life, 
we  cannot  magnify  and  adore  that  most  dear  Majest}'-, 
as  the  blessed  can  in  heaven.  Oh,  then,  the  joy  and 
consolation  to  think  that  others,  whom  we  have  re- 
leased from  purgatory,  are  doing  this  great  work  for 
us  in  heaven,  and  that,  while  we  are  still  here,  they 
have  begun  their  praise  already  !  Surely  there  can  be 
no  soul  that  has  been  fortunate  enough  to  reach  pur- 
gatory, which  is  not  holier  than  ours,  and  more  fitted 
to  glorify  God.  And  if  so,  then  have  we  ourselves 
already  put  one  in  heaven  who  shall  give  God  greater 
glory  than  we  should  do  if  we  were  there  ourselves. 
While  we  are  eating,  drinking,  sleeping,  toiling,  here 
on  earth, — there  in  heaven, — refreshing  thought !  most 
solid  consolation ! — is  the  unsleeping  soul,  or,  please 
God,  the  many  unsleeping  souls,  whom  we  have 
hastened  thither,  worshipping  and  exalting  the  beau- 
tiful Majesty  of  the  Most  High,  unspeakably,  inces- 
eantly. 

This  is  not  all :  there  is  a  fourth  trait  of  this  gene- 


SYMPATHY  WITH  JESUS.  63 


rous  devotion.  We  not  only  gain  invaluable  treasures 
for  ourselves,  but  for  others  also ;  for  we  cause  great 
joy  in  the  Church,  both  militant  and  triumphant. 
Great  is  the  feast  in  heaven  as  the  number  of  its 
citizens  is  increased ;  for  if  there  is  joy  there  over  one 
sinner  who  does  penance,  and  yet  he  can  return  to  his 
sin  again,  what  must  the  joy  be  over  that  new  citizen 
who  can  sin  no  more  ?  Its  guardian  angel,  too,  rejoices, 
and  receives  a  thousand  congratulations  from  the 
celestial  spirits  at  the  successful  issue  of  his  guardian- 
ship. There  is  joy  also  among  the  Saints  to  whom  the 
soul  was  specially  devoted,  and  among  his  relatives 
and  friends,  and  in  the  choir  to  which  he  is  Aggre- 
gated. Our  Lady,  too,  rejoices  at  the  success  of  her 
multiplied  intercessions ;  while  Jesus  reaps  the  har- 
vest of  His  Precious  Blood  with  love  and  with  re- 
joicing. The  Holy  Ghost  vouchsafes  to  joy  over  the 
triumph  of  His  gifts  and  countless  inspirations ;  and 
the  Eternal  Father,  in  the  perfection  of  His  chosen 
creature,  whom  he  has  borne  with  so  long  and  so  com- 
passionately. Neither  is  the  Church  Militant  less  in- 
terested in  this  joy.  She  has  gained  a  new  advocate. 
The  relatives,  friends,  family,  community,  country,  of 
that  soul  have  especial  reason  to  rejoice.  Nay,  all  the 
predestinated,  and,  indeed,  all  nature,  have  cause  of 
joy  that  another  creature  has  entered  into  the  joy  of 
its  Creator. 

But  there  is  a  fifth  fruit  of  this  devotion.  Lovo 
brooks  no  delay.  Shall  a  treasure  that  can  do  won- 
ders for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  interests  of  Jesus 
stand  idle,  it  may  be,  for  years  ?  At  present  we  may 
be  in  no  want  of  our  satisfactions  and  our  indulgences. 
And  if  they  go  into  the  treasury  of  the  Church,  who 


64  SYMPATHY  WITH   JESUS. 


knows  how  many  years  may  elapse  before  they  are  used, 
even  if  De  Lugo's  theory  be  true,  that  all  the  satisfac- 
tions of  the  Saints  will  certainly  be  used  before  the  day 
of  judgment?*  Shall  not  this  talent  then  be  used  for 
God  at  once,  by  at  once  releasing  souls  from  purgatory, 
vho  may  begin,  perhaps  this  very  night,  their  sweet 
sacrifice  of  everlasting  praise  ? 

Nay,  last  of  all,  what  we  are  giving  away  comes 
back  to  us  most  abundantly,  and  this  is  the  sixth  fruit 
of  this  devotion.  First  of  all,  in  this  very  act  of  such 
great  charity  and  generosity,  there  is  satisfaction  for 
our  sins ;  for  if  alms  given  to  relieve  bodily  wants 
satisfy  above  most  other  good  works,  what  will  not 
spiritual  alms  do  ?  Secondly,  he  who  loses  any  thing 
for  the  glory  of  God  receives  at  last  a  hundred-fold ; 
and  He  will  either  give  us  such  grace  as  that  we  shall 
need  little  purgatory,  or  He  will  inspire  others  to 
pray  for  us  when  we  are  there,  so  that,  if  we  had  kept 
our  indulgences  to  ourselves,  we  might  have  been  long 
in  those  fires ;  whereas  if  God  sets  many  to  gain  indul- 
gences for  us,  we  shall  enter  much  sooner  into  glory. 
It  is  an  axiom  that  no  one  loses  who  loses  for  God. 
And  when  we  are  in  purgatory,  the  blessed,  who  by 
our  means  went  sooner  into  heaven,  will  look  upon  us 
as  their  benefactors,  and  on  our  release  as  a  debt  of 
justice.  Nay,  it  is  not  they  only  who  will  acknowledge 
the  debt,  but  our  dear  Lord  also. 

Thus  to  give  all  our  satisfactions  and  indulgences  to 
the  souls  in  purgatory  is  so  far  from  being  contrary  to 

*  The  doctrine  of  this  passage,  as  it  stood  in  the  first  edition,  waa 
based  on  a  doubtful  passage  of  Nieremberg,  "  Avarizia  Santa,"  cap.  27. 
It  has  now  been  corrected  by  the  doctrine  of  De  Lugo,  De  Sac,  Poenit 
Du!p.  26,  Bee.  2,  n.  24. 


SYMPATHY  WITH  JESUS.  65 


the  right  order  of  charity,  that  it  is  our  best  interest 
4o  do  so.  It  is  a  devotion  quite  teeming  with  God's 
glory,  and  the  manifold  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the  love 
of  souls  ;  and  it  embraces  at  once  the  Church  Militant, 
tlie  Church  Suffering,  and  the  Church  Triumphant. 
Let  us  bless  God  that  He  has  in  His  mysterious  libe- 
rality allowed  us  this  inestimable  favour  of  doing  what 
we  will  with  our  satisfactions  and  indulgences ;  so  that, 
being  our  own,  and  at  our  free  disposal,  we  may  rejoice 
our  hearts  in  thus  employing  them  to  His  greater 
glory  and  sweeter  praise. 

See  how  far  some  have  gone,  whose  praise  is  in  all 
the  Churches.  Father  Ferdinand  de  Monroy,  a  most 
apostolic  man,  at  the  hour  of  death,  made  in  writing  a 
donation  and  transfer  to  the  souls  in  purgatory  of 
all  the  masses  that  should  be  said  for  him  after  he  was 
dead,  of  all  the  penances  offered  up  for  him,  and  all 
the  indulgences  gained  for  him.  He  might  well  make 
the  donation,  for  little  need  of  such  things  had  one 
who  loved  God  so  tenderly,  and  had  wedded  the  in- 
terests of  Jesus  so  utterly,  as  this  very  action  shows 
he  must  have  done.  "  Love  is  strong  as  death :  many 
waters  cannot  quench  charity,  neither  can  the  floods 
drown  it ;  if  a  man  should  give  all  the  substance  of 
his  house  for  love,  he  shall  despise  it  as  nothing."* 

Now  you  see  exactly  what  it  is  I  want  of  you.  You 
must  serve  Jesus  in  some  way  or  other ;  else  you 
would  not  save  your  soul.  You  are  absolutely  de- 
pendent upon  Him.  You  cannot  do  without  His  faith, 
His  life.  His  death.  His  Blood,  His  Church,  His  Sacra- 
ments.    You  cannot  take  a  step  toward  heaven,  but 


*  Cant.  viii.  6,  7. 
6* 


66  SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 


by  Him.  Nothing  that  you  think,  or  do,  or  say,  it 
worth  any  thing  until  His  worth  has  touched  it.  De- 
pendence cannot  be  conceived  more  utter  and  absolute, 
nor  more  incessant  and  indispensable,  than  is  your 
dependence  upon  him.  Thus  in  some  way  or  other 
you  must  serve  Jesus.  The  question  is  whether  it  is 
not  best  to  serve  Him  out  of  love.  But  has  your  reli- 
gion been  a  service  of  love  hitherto  ?  Or  have  you 
doled  out  your  duties  to  Him,  as  a  poor  man  pays  a 
debt  to  a  rich  creditor,  looking  him  in  the  face  between 
each  shilling  to  see  if  he  really  intends  to  forget  his 
poverty,  and  take  the  full  amount  of  his  debt?  Has 
not  the  problem  been  to  find  out  the  least  which  you 
must  do  to  gain  heaven?  Weighing  commandments, 
clipping  precepts,  interpreting  rules,  begging  dispensa- 
tions— is  not  this  the  kind  of  thing  you  have  called 
your  religion,  your  worship  of  an  Incarnate  God,  be- 
side Himself  with  love,  and  hanging  bleeding  on  a 
Cross? 

Now,  I  maintain  to  serve  Jesus  out  of  love  is  so 
much  easier  than  all  this.  Nothing  is  easy,  which  we 
are  not  happy  while  we  are  doing.  Have  you  been 
happy  in  your  religion  ?  Far  from  it !  It  has  been 
a  simple  burden  to  you.  If  it  had  not  been  for  heaven 
and  hell,  you  would  have  made  short  work  of  it  long 
since.  But  heaven  and  hell  are  facts  :  there  they  are  ; 
and  there  is  no  help  for  us.  As,  then,  we  must  be 
religious,  I  am  for  a  happy  religion.  I  see  no  use  in 
an  unhappy  one,  if  God  gives  me  my  choice.  But  He 
has  done  more  than  that.  He  wishes  me  to  be  happy 
in  my  religion.  Nay,  He  wishes  my  religion  to  be  the 
happiness  and  sunshine  of  my  life.  Now  a  happy 
religion  means  a  religion  of  love.     Every  thing  comes 


SYMPATHY   WITH  JESUS.  67 


easy  to  love.  Thus,  I  am  dependent  for  my  happiness 
on  no  one  but  Jesus.  My  religion  makes  me  happy 
all  the  day  long.  If  serving  Jesus  out  of  love  were 
Bome  prodigiously  diflficult  thing,  like  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  saints,  or  their  austerities,  then  it  would 
be  another  matter.  But  the  fact  is,  it  is  nothing  of 
the  kind.  To  serve  God  because  you  are  afraid  of 
going  to  hell,  and  wish  to  go  to  heaven,  is  a  great 
blessing,  and  a  supernatural  work  ;  but  it  is  very  diffi- 
cult. Whereas,  to  serve  God  because  you  love  Him  is 
so  easy  that  it  is  hard  to  account  for  so  many  men  in 
the  world  neglecting  to  do  it.  Stupid  souls,  so  miracu- 
lously blind ! 

And  what  is  a  further  blessing  is,  that  what  makes 
you  happy  makes  our  dearest  Lord  happy  also :  and 
the  thought  of  this  again  makes  us  so  happy,  that  we 
can  hardly  contain  ourselves,  and  then  that  again 
makes  Him  happier  still.  And  thus  religion  gets 
sweeter  and  sweeter.  Life  is  one  long  joy,  because  the 
Will  of  God  is  always  being  done  in  it,  and  the  glory 
of  God  always  being  got  from  it.  You  become  identi- 
fied with  the  interests  of  Jesus ;  you  wed  them  as  if 
they  were  your  own,  as  indeed  they  are.  His  spirit 
steals  into  you,  and  sets  up  a  little  throne  in  your 
heart,  and  crowns  itself,  and  then  most  sweetly  pro- 
claims itself  king.  It  gained  the  crown  by  a  dear  con- 
spiracy :  you  never  suspected  what  divine  love  was 
about  all  the  while.  But  so  it  is.  God's  glory  becomes 
dear  to  you ;  you  get  quite  touchy  about  our  Lord,  for 
He  is  become  the  apple  of  your  eye ;  and  you  are  drawn 
to  save  souls,  because  it  is  what  He  is  always  doing, 
and  so  you  get  an  instinct  and  a  taste  for  it  yourself. 
And  so  it  all  goes  on  ;   and  so  you  live ;   yet  not  you. 


68  SYMPATHY   WITH   JESUS. 


but  Christ  lives  in  you  ;  and  so  you  die.  You  never 
suspect  you  are  a  saint,  or  any  thing  approaching  one. 
Your  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God,  and  hid  from  no 
one  more  than  from  yourself.  Y'^ou  a  saint  indeed! 
Your  humility  w^ould  either  laugh,  or  be  frightened  at 
the  bare  thought.  But,  oh  the  depth  of  the  oiercies  of 
Jesus !  What  will  be  your  surprise  at  His  judgment^ 
seat,  to  hear  the  sweet  sentence,  to  see  the  bright 
crown !  Why,  you  will  almost  argue  against  your  own 
salvation!  Our  Lord  makes  the  elect  do  so  in  the 
Gospel:  Lord,  when  saw  we  Thee  hungry,  and  fed 
Thee  ?  When  saw  we  Thee  thirsty,  and  gave  Thee 
drink  ?  They  cannot  make  it  out.  .  In  all  their  love 
for  Jesus,  they  never  dreamed  it  was  so  great  a  thing 
as  this.  Ah !  only  serve  Jesus  out  of  love  !  You  can- 
not beat  God  in  the  strife  of  love !  Only  serve  Jesus 
out  of  love, — and  while  your  eyes  are  yet  unclosed, 
before  the  whiteness  of  death  is  yet  settled  on  your 
face,  or  those  around  you  sure  that  that  last  gentle 
breathing  was  indeed  your  last.  Oh  what  an  un- 
speakable surprise  will  you  have  had  at  the  judgment- 
seat  of  your  dearest  Love,  while  the  songs  of  heaven 
are  breaking  on  your  ears,  and  the  glory  of  God  is 
dawning  on  your  e3^es,  to  fade  away  no  more  for  ever  I 


CHAPTER  III. 

fflijt  Hflttnitli  ^  Sin. 

T  is  said  of  one  of  the  first  fathers 
of  the  Oratory,  the  companion  of 
St.  Philip,  that  he  used  to  prefer 
those  writers  on  grace  who  made 
most   of   God's    sovereignty    and 
least  of  man's  free-will.     This  re- 
mark reveals  to  us  his  whole  cha- 
racter.    It  is   not  so  much  an   ex- 
pression of  his  being  a  faithful  disci- 
ple of  St.  Thomas  in  the  particular  theo- 
logical question  alluded  to,   as    a   dis- 
closure of  his  peculiar  spiritual  life,  and 
the  bent  of  his   devotion.    He  had  a 
ruling  passion  which  was  more  to  him 
than  the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  controversy. 
He  had  got  a  habit  of  taking  God's  side  in 
every  thing,  and  of  always  looking  at  things 
from  God's  point  of  view.     And  this  is  ex- 
actly what  I  am  venturing  to  recommend  to  you. 

A  false  doctrine  is  odious,  because  it  is  untrue  ;  it  is 
odious  also  because  it  gives  scandal,  or  backens  devo- 
tion, or  injures  souls.  On  all  these  grounds  good  men 
hate  it.     But  those  who  love  God  with  a  very  tender 


70  .    LOVE    WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


and  delicate  love  do  not  think  of  it  so  much  in  these 
respects,  as  because  God's  honour  is  wounded  by  it. 
God's  honour  is  their  first  thought.  They  range  them- 
selves at  once  on  God's  side.  So  again,  a  good  man  is 
overwhelmed  by  an  unjust  persecution  or  a  cruel  ca- 
lumny. These  men  are  not  without  the  most  tender 
sympathy  and  the  most  generous  self-sacrifice  for  the 
sufi'erer.  But  their  first  thought,  their  strongest 
thought,  their  abiding  thought,  is  the  wound  inflicted 
on  God's  honour  by  the  persecution  of  Ilis  servant,  and 
of  the  sin  almost  necessarily  committed  by  the  per- 
secutors. So  in  cases  of  spiritual  destitution,  or  of 
great  public  sins,  or  of  important  political  changes,  or 
of  local  calamities,  or  of  Catholic  triumphs,  or  of  getting 
souls  out  of  purgatory,  these  men  by  an  instantaneous 
instinct  feel  and  find  where  God's  glory  is  touched, 
and  are  at  once  so  absorbed  in  it,  that  they  often  seem 
unaffectionate  or  ungenerous,  or  uncordial  in  sorrowing 
and  rejoicing  with  others ;  though  it  is  not  really  so  in 
their  hearts. 

Now,  this  taking  God's  side  on  every  occasion  may 
easily  be  formed  in  us  as  a  habit,  by  time,  prayer,  and 
quiet  assiduity  in  devotion ;  and  surely  it  is  a  con- 
siderable help  to  us  in  loving  and  serving  God.  It  is  a 
great  thing  gradually  to  grow  in  the  convictioa  that 
there  is  no  real  sorrow  in  the  world  but  sin ;  that  we 
have  no  real  enemy  but  sin ;  and  that  warfare  with  sin, 
in  others  as  well  as  in  ourselves,  in  prayer  as  well  as  iv 
action,  is  just  the  one  work  we  have  to  do,  and  is  just 
the  one  work  which  is  worth  doing.  And  it  is  this 
conviction  which  comes  of  our  always  taking  God's  side, 
and  which  when  it  has  once  come  causes  us  to  persevere 
all  the  more  steadfastly  in  taking  that  side.    As  crea* 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.    .  71 


tiires,  we  are  in  our  proper  place  when  we  are  taking 
the  side  of  our  Creator,  defending  His  interests,  pro- 
tecting His  majesty,  advancing  His  glory.  There  is 
happiness  in  the  darkest  lot,  peace  in  the  wildest 
trouble,  when  we  are  thus  engaged. 

But  God  is  not  our  Creator  only ;  He  is  our  Father 
also.  Oh  that  we  all  felt  the  importance  of  this  !  The 
man  who  serves  God  as  his  Creator,  is  a  very  different 
character  from  the  man  who  serves  Him  as  his  Father. 
We  do  not  serve  God  out  of  love,  because  we  have  not 
a  loving  idea  of  God.  We  are  dry,  cold,  grudging, 
with  Him,  because  we  will  persist  in  looking  at  Him 
only  as  our  Lawgiver,  or  Master,  or  Sovereign,  or 
Judge.  Far  more  persons  would  try  to  go  on  to  per- 
fection, far  more  would  persevere  in  it,  there  would  be 
a  far  less  wide  gulf  between  saints  and  common  Catho- 
lics, if  only  we  were  all  agreed  to  serve  God  as  our 
Father,  and  to  look  upon  Him  as  our  Father.  It  is 
astonishing  what  an  amount  of  jealous  and  unkindly 
feeling  there  is  even  among  good  people  toward  God, 
His  sovereignty  and  His  majesty.  It  is  at  the  root  of 
all  the  unhappiness  and  want  of  comfort  in  religious 
duties.  It  brings  with  it  all  sorts  of  temptations 
against  the  faith,  and  starts  all  manner  of  scruples  in 
the  mind,  which  hamper  the  tenderness  of  devotion,  and 
freeze  the  gay  spirit  of  loving  mortification.  Why,  it 
is  the  very  sunshine  of  life  to  believe  and  feel  at  every 
turn  that  God  is  our  Father,  and  is  acting  to  us  out  of 
a  Father's  love  and  in  a  Father's  way  ! 

See  what  pains  God  has  been  pleased  to  take  to  pre- 
vent this  unkindly  view  of  Him  on  the  part  of  His 
children.  He  has  committed  all  judgment  to  the  Son. 
It  is  our  dear  Lord,  as  man,  who  is  to  judge  us  at  the 


72  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY    SIN. 


last.  Our  very  kst  appeal  is  to  His  sacred  Human 
Heart.  When  God  invites  His  rebellious  people  to 
return  to  Him,  by  the  mouth  of  Jeremias,  He  sums 
up  all  their  sins,  and  then  pleads  so  compassionately, 
rather  for  Himself  than  with  them  ;*  "  Therefore,  at 
the  least,  from  this  time  call  to  me,  Thou  art  my 
Father."  The  apostle  sums  up  the  whole  work  of  the 
Gospel  in  this  very  thing,  that  we  have  received  the 
spirit  of  adoption,  whereby  we  cry  Abba,  Father ;  and 
when  our  Lord  teaches  us  to  pray,  it  is  by  the  name 
of  Father  that  He  bids  us  call  on  God.  Nay,  He  has 
provided  one  of  the  seven  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  that 
of  Piety,  for  the  express  purpose  of  enabling  us  to 
exercise,  even  in  an  heroic  degree,  a  really  filial  tender- 
ness toward  God.  This  gift  is  defined  to  be  an 
habitual  disposition  which  the  Holy  Ghost  infuses 
into  the  soul  to  excite  in  us  a  filial  afiection  toward 
God,  and  St.  Thomas  tells  us,t  that  works  done  to  God 
as  our  Father,  are  more  meritorious  than  works  done 
to  Him  as  our  Creator,  because  the  motive  is  more 
excellent.  Of  what  importance  saintly  men  considered 
this  sweet  filial  feeling  toward  God,  is  shown  very 
remarkably  by  an  observation  which  Cardinal  Bellar- 
mine  made  when  he  visited  France.  He  said  he  was 
struck  with  the  devout  piety  of  the  French,  in  this 
sense  of  the  word  piety,  and  that  the  people  seemed  to 
him  in  consequence  better  Catholics  than  the  Italians. 
So  at  least  he  is  quoted  by  Lallemant. 

St.  Paul,  not  content  with  the  passage  already  cited 
from  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,J  repeats  almost  the 
same  words  to  the  Galatians.^     He  speaks  as  if,  under 

*Jer.  iii.  4  t2.2dao.q.l21.  +viii.l5.         gCap.iv. 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  73 


the  old  dispensation,  God  had  not,  so  to  say,  succeeded 
in  persuading  the  Jews  to  look  upon  Ilim  as  their 
Father,  and  that,  therefore,  "  when  the  fulness  of  time 
was  come,  God  sent  His  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made 
under  the  law,  that  He  might  redeem  them  who  were 
under  the  law,  that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of 
sons.  And  because  you  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  the 
Spirit  of  His  Son  into  your  hearts,  saying,  Abba, 
Father.  Therefore,  now  he  is  not  a  servant,  but  a 
son."  Yet  even  in  the  Old  Testament,  who  does  not 
remember  the  pathetic  language  of  Israel?  "Thou 
art  our  Father,  and  Abraham  has  not  known  us,  and 
Israel  hath  been  ignorant  of  us  ;  Thou,  0  Lord,  art  our 
Father,  our  Redeemer;  from  everlasting  is  Thy 
Name."* 

Lancisius,  in  his  Treatise  on  the  Presence  of  God,t 
gives  a  number  of  acts  of  love,  addressing  God  as 
"My  most  holy  Lord  and  dearest  Father,"  and  at 
the  end  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  an  objector  this 
question,  "  Why  in  these  interior  acts  of  love  do  you 
add  the  name  of  Father?"  He  replies  that  it  is  for 
four  reasons.  First,  because  it  is  desirable  that  such 
acts  of  love  should  be  elicited  from  the  soul,  not  merely 
by  the  affections  of  humility  and  religion  implied  in 
the  title  of  Lord,  but  by  an  affectionate  filial  feeling 
toward  Him.  Secondly,  because  of  the  greater  merit 
thus  acquired,  according  to  the  doctrine  of  St.  Thomas 
quoted  above.  "  It  is  more  excellent,"  says  the  an- 
gelic doctor,  "  to  worship  God  as  our  Father,  than  to 
worship  Him  as  our  Creator  and  Lord."  And  St.  LeoJ 
Bays,  "  Great  is  the  sacrament  of  this  privilege,  aad 

*  leaias  Ixiii.  16.  f  ".  66.  J  Senn.  Ti.  de  Nativ. 


74  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


this  gift  exceeds  all  gifts,  that  God  should  call  man 
son,  and  that  man  should  call  God  Father."  Thirdly, 
because  the  remembrance  that  God  is  our  Father 
excites  confidence  in  us  ;  and  it  is  on  this  account, 
says  Tertullian,  St.  Cyprian,  and  St.  Chrysostom,  that 
the  Lord's  prayer  begins,  Our  Father;  for,  to  quote 
St.  Thomas*  again,  "confidence  is  chiefly  excited  in 
us  by  considering  God's  love  toward  us,  whereby  Ho 
wishes  us  good  things,  and  on  which  account  we  call 
Him  Father."  Fourthly,  "  we  call  Him  Father,"  says 
St.  Augustine,  "  that  by  the  kind  name  of  Father  we 
may  win  His  favour,  and  by  that  appellation  move 
Him  to  grant  what  we  are  asking." 

There  is  a  very  beautiful  passage  in  the  revelations 
of  St.  Gertrude,!  showing  how  acceptable  with  God  are 
titles  of  reverent  yet  familiar  endearment.  Our  Lord 
told  her  that  as  often  as  any  one  says  to  God,  my  Love 
ur  my  Sweetest,  or,  my  best  Beloved,  and  the  like, 
with  a  devout  intention,  he  receives  a  pledge  of  his 
salvation,  in  virtue  of  which,  if  he  perseveres,  he  shall 
receive  in  heaven  a  special  privilege  of  the  same  sort 
as  the  special  grace  which  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  the 
beloved  disciple,  had  on  earth. 

Now,  if  we  fully  feel  that  God  is  our  Father,  if  our 
daily  way  of  thinking  of  God,  and  of  approaching  Him, 
is  as  our  most  dear  Father,  it  must  soon  come  to  pass 
that  there  will  be  nothing  on  earth  half  so  dear  to  us 
as  His  majesty  and  honour.  We  should  feel  as  if  it 
belonged  to  us,  and  was  really  our  own,  and  we  should 
take  up  any  ofi"ence  against  it  as  warmly  as  we  should 
now  take  up  an  injustice  toward  ourselves.     But  it  is 

*  2.  2dae  q.  S3.  f  1-  3.  c  9 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


sin  which  offends  Ilim ;  and  therefore  it  would  be  sin 
which  we  should  feel  to  be  our  one  enemy,  our  only 
care,  our  single  misery  on  earth,  whether  it  were  in 
ourselves  or  in  others.  Yes ;  other  men's  sins  would 
cease  to  be  matters  of  indifference  to  us,  because  they 
are  offences  against  the  Majesty  of  God.  We  should 
fully  enter  rnto  that  constant  cry  of  St.  Philip, — Only 
let  there  be  no  sin !  only  let  there  be  no  sin  ! 

When  we  are  full  of  this  view  of  God,  not  a  day 
goes  by  without  our  detecting  something  fatherly  in 
Him  which  we  never  observed  before.  Prayer  changes, 
and  sacraments  accomplish  greater  things  than  hereto- 
fore. Every  thing  about  us  alters  by  degrees.  Duties 
grow  into  prvileges  ;  penances  brighten  up  into  plea- 
sures ;  pains  soften  the  heart  with  a  delicious  humility, 
and  sorrows  are  heavenly  presences.  Work  becomes 
rest,  and  weariness  of  limb  and  brain  almost  touches 
on  the  sweet  languor  of  contemplation.  It  is  as  if 
earth  were  making  itself  into  heaven ;  and  at  the  com- 
monest sights  and  sounds  something  tingles  in  our 
hearts  as  if  God  were  just  on  the  point  of  speaking  or 
appearing.  What  another  thing  is  life  when  we  have 
found  out  our  Father ;  and  if  we  work,  it  is  beneath 
His  eye,  and  if  we  play,  it  is  in  the  light  and  encourage- 
ment of  His  smile.  Earth's  sunshine  is  heaven's  radi- 
ance, and  the  stars  of  night  as  if  the  beginnings  of  the 
Beatific  Vision ;  so  soft,  so  sweet,  so  gentle,  so  repose- 
ful, so  almost  infinite  have  all  things  become,  because 
we  have  found  our  Father  in  our  God. 

When  we  love  God,  we  rejoice  that  He  is  God,  that 
He  is  so  good  and  perfect  as  He  is.  We  call  this  feel- 
ing the  love  of  complacency.  We  transfer  His  joy  to 
ourselves;   we  rejoice  in  it  as  if  it  were  our  own, 


70  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


simply  because  we  love  Ilim.  Jacob  would  not  belie va 
in  Joseph's  glory,  but*  seeing  him,  he  fell  upon  his 
neck,  and  embracing  him,  he  said.  Now  shall  I  die 
with  joy,  because  I  have  seen  thy  face,  and  leave  thee 
alive.  But  this  is  not  the  only  ofi&ce  of  love.  If  it 
makes  us  happy  because  the  Object  of  our  love  is  happy, 
by  transferring  His  happiness  into  our  hearts,  and  so 
making  his  interests  our  own,  the  same  love  will 
equally  make  us  sorrowful,  because  the  Object  of  our 
love  is  wronged  and  oppressed,  by  transferring  His 
injury  to  ourselves,  and  placing  His  wrongs  in  our 
hearts,  as  if  they  were  rather  ours  than  His.  What 
I  mean  is  this,  that  to  sorrow  over  the  sins  of  others 
is  no  far-fetched  devotion,  or  subtle  refinement  of  reli- 
gious feeling ;  but  that  it  follows  inevitably  upon  the 
love  of  God.  AVhere  there  is  no  such  sorrow  for  sin, 
either  in  ourselves  or  others,  there  is  no  love  of  God ; 
and  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  love  will  the  degree 
of  sorrow  be.  What  was  it  that  made  our  Blessed 
Lady's  dolours  more  intolerable  than  all  the  tortures 
of  the  martyrs,  but  that  her  love  exceeded  all  the 
martyrs'  love  ?  Thus,  if  God  is  wronged  and  outraged, 
we  take  the  wrong  into  our  hearts,  and  it  wounds  us 
by  means  of  the  love  we  have  for  Him. 

Nay,  as  sympathy  and  compassion  are  feelings  more 
easily  excited  in  us  than  those  of  complacency,  it  seems 
as  if  God  wished  to  cultivate  what  theologians  call  the 
love  of  condolence,  even  more  than  of  complacency. 
This  is  one  reason  why  devotion  to  the  Passion  is  the 
great  popular  devotion  of  the  whole  Church.  It  may 
also  be  a  reason  why  our  Lord  was  pleased  to  suffer  so 

*  Oen.  xlvL 


LOVE   WOUNDED    BY    SIN.  77 

much  more  than  lie  need  have  done,  and  with  so  many 
unnecessary  touching  circumstances,  that  to  condole 
with  Him  in  His  Passion  might  be  all  the  easier,  and 
eo  He  might  have  more  of  our  poor  love.  Neither 
does  it  require  any  rare  amount  of  love  to  feel  this  sa- 
cred compassion.  The  women  of  Jerusalem  were  no 
saints,  yet  they  wept  over  Him  in  the  way  of  the 
Cross.  Job's  friends  were  the  meanest-hearted  of  men, 
yet  even  compassion  mastered  their  pompous  dryness 
and  unamiable  pedantry.  What  we  want  of  all  things 
is  our  hearts  softening,  and  sorrow  softens  them  sooner 
and  more  effectually  than  joy. 

I  have  no  hope  we  shall  get  any  further  loves  into 
our  heart,  if  we  do  not  first  domesticate  this  love  of 
condolence  there.  We  do  not  find  such  great  fault 
with  a  man  who  does  not  joy  in  another's  joy,  as  we 
do  with  him  who  grieves  not  with  another's  grief.  Sym- 
pathy belongs  to  our  position  in  the  world,  and  there 
is  hope  for  the  most  sinful  heart,  if  it  only  keeps  its 
quick  and  affectionate  sympathies.  Out  of  all  evil 
comes  good ;  and  so  from  sin  and  the  Passion  of  our 
dear  Lord,  as  from  two  perennial  fountains,  flows  this 
blessed  love  of  condolence  in  our  hearts.  And  see 
what  this  love  can  do !  Mary's  compassion  is  said,  in 
a  certain  sense,  to  have  co-operated  with  our  Blessed 
Lord's  Passion  in  the  saving  of  the  world.  How 
many  instances  we  have  on  record  of  God  showing 
mercy  to  sinners,  just  because  they  kept  up  some  tri- 
fling tender  memory  of  His  loving  Passion!  We  must 
grieve  with  Him  now,  if  we  would  rejoice  with  Him 
hereafter.  I  wish  you  would  reflect  on  this.  I  do  not 
think  you  keep  it  in  mind  as  you  ought,  or  appreciate 
its  value.  St.  Francis  of  Sales  says,  that  the  ardent 
T* 


78  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


desire  of  our  Saviour  to  enter  our  souls  by  this  dolor- 
ous love  is  inexplicable.  Here  then,  is  a  sweet  way 
of  loving  Him,  a  sweet  way  of  giving  Him  greater 
glory.  You  will  not  refuse  Him  when  it  is  so  easy.  I 
am  sure  you  love  Him.  I  am  sure  you  wish  to  love 
Him  more.  I  will  not  believe  that  it  is  not  so.  Dear 
Lord !  who  can  help  loving  Him  ?  Is  there  such  a 
thing  as  a  heart  that  does  not  love  Him  ?  But  it  is 
not  our  business  now  to  go  in  search  of  such  strange 
things,  or  to  see  if  such  dreadful  wonders  exist  upon 
the  earth.  We  love  Him ;  blessed  be  His  grace  for 
that!  There  was  his  old  Passion  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago ;  there  is  His  daily  passion  now,  and  His 
nightly  agony,  because  sin  abounds.  Cruel  sin !  cruel 
sinners!  But  He  shall  take  refuge  with  us;  only 
listen  at  your  hearts,  and  hear  what  He  says.  Is  it 
not  clear  ?*  Open  to  Me,  My  sister,  My  love,  My  dove, 
My  undefiled;  for  My  head  is  full  of  dew,  and  My 
locks  of  the  drops  of  the  nights ! 

But  you  may  say,  sorrowing  for  other  men's  sins  is 
all  very  well  for  saints  ;  we  know  the  saints  have  done 
so  ;  but  it  is  a  thing  rather  to  be  admired  than  imi- 
tated ;  it  is  above  us  ;  it  would  be  an  injudicious  prac- 
tice in  us ;  we  do  not  half  sorrow  for  our  own  sins  yet ; 
we  must  not  go  so  quick ;  we  must  learn  a  little  more 
of  that  first.  Alas  !  do  not  make  such  an  objection  as 
this.  Let  me  take  you  on  your  own  ground.  You 
have  not,  you  say,  half  enough  sorrow  for  your  own 
sins.  There  is  nothing  you  regret  so  much  as  this,  no- 
thing which  seems  to  you  more  uncomfortable  and  un« 
promising  in  your  spiritual  life.     But  why  have  you 

♦Oant.T.2. 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  79 


not  more  sorrow  ?  Because  you  look  more  at  sin  as  it 
affects  the  interests  of  your  own  soul  than  as  it  affects 
the  interests  of  God.  1  do  not  mean  to  say  you  are  not 
to  look  at  it  in  that  way — God  forbid.  You  must  do 
the  one,  but  you  must  not  leave  the  other  undone. 
Now,  if  you  look  at  sin  simply  as  it  regards  your  own 
reward  and  punishment,  it  is  clear  you  will  never  get 
an  adequate  hatred  of  sin  ;  for  your  punishment  is  far 
from  being  the  chief  evil  of  sin.  Its  chief  evil  is  its 
outrage  of  the  majesty  of  God  ;  and  if  you  could  sec  it 
in  this  light,  you  would  have  a  much  keener  sorrow  for 
your  own  sins  than  you  have.  But,  then,  in  order  to 
see  it  in  this  light,  you  must  learn  to  look  with  an  eye 
of  sorrow  on  the  sins  of  others ;  for  there  you  have  no 
interests  of  your  own,  there  you  are  contemplating  sim- 
ply the  injured  glory  of  our  Heavenly  Father.  And 
thus,  in  order  to  sorrow  more  deeply  and  more  effectu- 
ally for  your  own  sins,  you  must  mourn  for  God's  dear 
sake  over  the  sins  of  others.  And  this  is  the  practice 
which  I  wish  now  to  recommend  to  you  as  embodying 
the  spirit  of  the  Confraternity: — sorrowing  for  the  sins 
of  others,  and  making  reparation  to  God's  injured  glory 
for  them. 

I  say  this  practice  embodies  the  spirit  of  the  Confra- 
ternity, because  the  reasons  for  grieving  over  other 
men's  sins  are  the  same  reasons  given  before  for  belong- 
ing to  the  Confraternity.  We  sorrow  for  other  men's 
sins,  because  God's  glory  is  injured  by  them,  because 
the  fruit  of  our  dear  Lord's  Passion  is  spoiled  or  wasted, 
and  because  souls  are  damaged  and  lost  thereby.  You 
see  the  same  three  things  come  over  and  over  again ; 
and  you  must  not  be  weary  of  my  repeating  them  so 
often.    But,  when  I  use  the  word  sorrow,  you  must  not 

(UFIVBRSITY' 


so  LOVE    WOUNDED    BY    SIN. 


misunderstand  me ;  I  am  not  putting  before  you  any 
thing  melancholy,  or  disagreeable.  Far  from  it.  The 
Borrow  I  speak  of  is  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  in  life, 
enough  to  lighten  a  heavy  heart,  rather  than  to  depress 
a  light  one.  Hear  how  the  Eternal  Father  vouchsafed 
to  explain  this  to  Ilis  beloved  daughter,  St.  Catherine 
of  Siena.  After  speaking  to  her*  of  the  five  kinds  of 
tears  men  shed,  he  speaksf  of  a  state  of  the  soul  at  once 
blessed  and  yet  sorrowing.  *'  It  is  blessed,  indeed, 
from  its  sensible  union  with  Me,  wherein  it  tastes  the 
Divine  Love.  Its  sorrow  arises  from  its  view  of  the 
ofiences  which  are  committed  against  Me,  who  am  the 
Eternal  Goodness,  whom  it  beholds  and  tastes  in  its 
knowledge  of  itself  and  of  Me.  Neither  does  this  hin- 
der its  state  of  union  with  Me ;  for  the  tears  which  it 
sheds  are  of  great  sweetness,  proceeding  from  its  know- 
ledge of  itself  in  its  love  of  its  neighbour.  For  it  finds 
the  plaintiveness  of  love  in  My  mercy,  and  the  sorrow 
of  love  in  the  miseries  of  its  neighbours.  So  it  weeps 
with  those  that  weep,  and  joys  with  those  that  joy  ;  for 
the  soul  rejoices  when  My  servants  pay  honour  and 
glory  to  My  name."  And  again,  J  "  This  nrvafflicting 
pain,  arising  from  my  being  ofiended,  and  from  the 
misfortunes  of  its  neighbours,  is  founded  on  a  most  real 
charity,  and  fattens  the  soul.  Nay,  a  man  rejoices  and 
exults  in  this  pain,  because  it  is  a  most  convincing 
proof  that  I  am  in  his  soul  by  a  very  special  grace." 

Thus  it  has  been  that  the  Saints  who  have  received 
the  most  eminent  gift  of  tears,  have  also  been  inundated 
above  others  with  spiritual  joy.  The  old  biographer 
of  St.  John  Climacus  tells  us,  that  words  cannot  express 

*  Dial.  88.  t  Cap.  89.  t  Cap.  95, 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  81 


the  ravishing  effects  which  his  gift  of  tears  produced 
in  his  soul ;  and  the  Saint  himself,  in  the  seventh  step 
of  his  Ladder  of  Perfection,  says,  that  "  they  who  have 
received  the  gift  of  tears  spend  every  day  of  their  lives 
as  a  spiritual  feast."  Truly  there  is  no  bitterness  in 
the  tears  of  those  who  love  ;  and  what  can  there  be  but 
]»eace  and  joy  in  tears  which  are  a  gift  of  Him  who  is 
the  love  and  jubilee,  as  St.  Augustine  calls  Ilim,  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son  ? 

But  I  shall  make  myself  more  clear  by  giving  you 
instances  of  this  sorrow  for  all  sins  against  the  glory 
of  God,  from  the  saints  themselves ;  and  you  will  thus 
see  hoAv  sweet  and  easy  the  practice  is.  God  made  the 
following  revelation  to  the  same  St.  Catherine.*  "  I  am 
greatly  pleased,  my  dearest  daughter,  with  this  desire 
of  enduring  every  pain  and  toil,  even  till  death,  for  the 
salvation  of  souls.  For  the  more  a  man  endures,  the 
more  he  shows  his  love  of  Me ;  and  loving  Me,  he  knows 
more  of  My  truth  ;  and  the  more  he  knows  of  Me,  the 
more  he  feels  the  pain  and  intolerable  grief  of  all  sin 
against  Me.  You  asked  to  take  the  punishment  of 
other  people's  faults  upon  yourself,  and  you  did  not 
perceive  that  in  asking  that,  you  were  all  the  while 
asking  love,  light,  and  knowledge  of  the  truth ;  for,  as 
I  have  already  said,  the  greater  love  is,  the  greater  is 
the  pain ;  so,  as  love  grows,  sorrow  will  also  grow." 
St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi  went  into  a  rapture  one 
day  when  she  was  meditating  on  the  words  of  the  Gos- 
pel: "  There  came  forth  blood  and  water."  "  She  saw," 
says  her  confessor,  "  a  great  multitude  of  souls  in  the 
eido  of  Jesus,  shining  like  gems  on  a  royal  crown  ;  and 

*Dial.  c.  5. 


82  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


she  said :  '  So  our  souls,  beautified  by  Blood,  become 
the  crown  of  the  "Word,  because  of  the  manifestation  of 
the  Word  which  they  make  before  the  rest  of  creation  ; 
and  lie  glories  in  this,  as  a  king  glories  in  his  royal 
crown.'  She  saw  the  souls  who  entered  into  this  lov- 
ing cavern  of  the  "Wounded  Side,  expressing  two  affec- 
tions. First,  they  transformed  themselves  into  blood 
by  love,  and  then  into  water  by  sorrow.  *  But  God 
takes  more  pleasure  in  a  soul  which,  in  this  life  at  least, 
transforms  itself  by  sorrow,  than  in  one  that  transforms 
itself  by  love  ;  though  I  know,  0  "Word  !  that  the  sor- 
row which  a  soul  feels  at  seeing  Thee  offended  can  only 
arise  from  the  love  it  bears  to  Thee,  which  in  itself  is 
more  perfect  than  sorrow.  Yet  by  the  way  of  sorrow 
the  soul  is  better  exercised  in  the  love  of  its  neighbour, 
because  thereby  the  zeal  for  his  salvation  masters  it  in 
a  more  lively  manner.  There  is  another  reason,  too, 
why  in  this  life  the  exercise  of  sorrow  pleases  God  more 
than  the  exercise  of  love,  because  the  former  is  a  sort 
of  martyrdom,  by  which  souls  resemble  Ilim  hanging 
on  the  Cross,  and  their  sorrow  is  compassion  for  His 
great  pains,  and  as  it  were  tears  of  love  for  His  Pas- 
sion. And  when  this  sorrow  rises  to  the  point  of  afflic- 
tion, it  cleanses  the  soul  from  its  sins.  Love  is  cer- 
tainly more  delectable ;  but,  as  we  are  in  this  world  to 
be  cleansed,  it  is  rather  the  time  for  sorrowing  and 
suffering  for  the  love  of  our  God  ;  and  so  it  is  that  God 
takes  more  complacency  in  sorrow  than  in  love.' "  On 
another  occasion,  after  communion,  our  Lord  told  the 
same  saint  to  mourn  like  a  turtle-dove,  and  to  compas- 
sionate Him  because  he  was  so  little  known  and  loved 
by  His  creatures. 

Indeed  this  is  the  very  office  which  nuns  have  to  fill 


LOVE   WOUNDED    BY   SIN.  83 


in  the  Church  of  God.  There  are  none  of*  them,  no 
matter  how  they  may  be  occupied  with  education  or 
other  external  work,  who  have  not  this  burden  laid 
upon  them  by  the  mere  fact  of  their  religious  profes- 
sion. A  number  of  pious  and  amiable  ladies  living 
together  in  peace  and  harmony,  going  through  the 
daily  routine  of  spiritual  exercises  prescribed  by  the 
letter  of  their  rule,  and  engaged  in  the  education  of 
youth,  without  any  recognition  of  a  supernatural  end, 
or  any  practical  feeling  that  they  are  pledged  to  Jesus 
more  than  others  are, — these  are  not  nuns,  however 
picturesque  their  habit  may  seem,  and  however  re- 
spectable the  individualfi  may  be.  It  is  pleasaAt,  in- 
deed, that  ladies  should  have  such  a  retreat  from  the 
world,  where  so  much  frivolity  and  temptation  are  kept 
at  arm's  length.  But  such  retreats  are  not  convents. 
Convents  are  quite  other  soi  t  of  places ;  and  a  lady 
retired  from  the  world  does  not  become  simply  on  that 
account  a  mystical  spouse  of  Jesus  Christ.  There  is 
necessarily,  by  the  vow  of  poverty,  if  by  nothing  else, 
an  expiatory  character  in  nuns.  They  have  to  mourn 
as  turtle-doves.  It  is  not  they  who  are  so  much  shel- 
tered from  the  world,  as  Jesus,  who  is  sheltered  by 
them  from  the  wicked  world,  in  the  cloister  of  their 
hearts.  Their  spirit  must  be  one  of  loving  sorrow,  of 
sweet  reparation,  of  holy  languishing  over  the  wrongs 
of  their  heavenly  Spouse.  They  have  wedded  Ilia 
interests,  and  must  grieve  and  be  glad  with  him.  lie 
has  given  them  His  glory  to  nurse.  The  world  is  their 
cross,  and  they  must  carry  it.  They  may  not  be  in- 
different to  its  sins ;  they  are  set  apart  to  mourn  over 
them.  Never,  where  this  spirit  is  wanting,  will  be 
found   the  royal  heart  of  mortification    the   blessed 


84  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


heights  of  mental  prayer,  the  awe-inspiring  yet  glad- 
dening and  refreshing  atmosphere  of  the  really  super- 
natural life.  Neither  time,  nor  country,  nor  occupa- 
tion, can  dispense  the  spouses  of  Jesus  Christ  from 
their  office  of  turtle-doves  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  They 
must  realize  in  a  constant  spirit  of  reparation  and  ob- 
lation, the  sentiments  which  were  habitual  to  the 
Blessed  Paul  of  the  Cross.  He  lamented  and  deplored, 
with  bitter  tears,  the  ingratitude  of  men  who  cor- 
responded so  coldly  to  the  unbounded  goodness  of 
God,  and  he  would  repeat :  "  What !  a  God  made  man  ! 
A  God  crucified  !  A  God  dead !  A  God  hidden  under 
the  sacramental  species  !  Who?  A  God?"  And  then 
he  would  be  for  some  time  silent  in  a  sort  of  ecstatic 
stupor,  and  then  again  would  exclaim,  "Oh  burning 
charity  !  Oh  passionate  love !  Who  ?  And  for  whom  ? 
Oh  ungrateful  creatures  !  How  is  it  that  you  love  not 
God?  I  would  that  it  were  possible  to  set  all  the 
world  on  fire  with  love.  Ah  for  a  little  strength  to  go 
out  into  the  open  fields  preaching  my  dear  crucified 
Jesus,  our  good  Father  dying  upon  the  cross  for  us 
sinners  \" 

If  this  be  true  of  nilns,  then  it  is  so  important  that 
it  should  be  always  foremost  in  their  thoughts.  If 
they  have  an  expiatory  character,  it  must  obviously 
be  the  chief  thing  about  them.  The  success  of  their 
school  must  be  a  very  secondary  afiair,  and  so  also 
must  be  the  number  of  their  novices,  and  the  archi- 
tecture of  their  convents,  and  their  exemptions  from 
episcopal  rule.  Now,  when  nuns  set  to  work  and 
praise  themselves  under  cover  of  praising  their  Jiol^ 
community,  or  their  Jiohj  rule,  or  their  holy  founder, 
when  they  are  full  of  pity  for   people  living  in  the 


LOVE   WOUNDED    BY    SIN.  85 


world,  eloquent  on  dangers  and  snares  from  which 
they  are  delivered,  and  loud  in  self-gratulation  on  the 
grace  of  their  vocations,  I  cannot  avoid,  perhaps  in  a 
spirit  of  contradiction,  arguing  thus : — These  good 
nuns  must  take  a  low  view  of  what  Jesus  requires  of 
His  spouses,  or  they  would  be  more  frightened  about 
their  own  short-comings  ;  I  suspect  our  Lord  does  not 
fare  over  well  in  that  community,  and  that  the  interior 
life  of  it  is  sadly  shallow.  Self-praise  is  apt  to  be  the 
besetting  sin  of  nuns ;  and  they  should  sometimes 
remind  themselves  that  a  publican  in  the  world  needs 
less  pity  than  a  Pharisee  in  the  cloister.  An  occasional 
week's  meditation  on  the  awful  and  adorable  purity 
of  God  would  accomplish  this  end  with  especial  bene- 
diction. If  a  good  soul  were  to  see  all  at  once  what  it 
has  pledged  itself  to  in  the  way  both  of  perfection  and 
of  suffering  by  religious  profession,  perhaps  without  a 
miracle  it  could  not  endure  the  vision,  and  live.  Ah ! 
the  lively,  spiritual  prattle  about  convent  joys  and 
convent  privileges  must  come  either  from  a  very  young 
novice,  or  a  sadly  inexperienced  nun.  It  is  never 
heard  in  those  delightful  houses  where  all  breathes 
of  the  supernatural,  of  abasement,  of  tranquillity,  of 
God,  where  the  very  air  rebukes  proud  thoughts,  and 
from  which  we  carry  away  a  precious  disesteem  of 
self  without  the  conceited  bitterness  of  self-reproach. 

Still  more  remarkable  is  the  proof  of  the  power  over 
the  Sacred  Heart  of  this  practice  of  sorrowing  for  the 
sins  of  others,  which  we  find  in  the  life  of  St.  Mary 
Magdalene  of  Pazzi.  It  is  full  of  the  most  encourag- 
ing sweetness  and  soothing  consolation  for  ourselves, 
for,  in  our  measure  and  degree,  how  easy  it  is  for  us 
to  follow  her  footsteps,  though  far  behind,  in  this  holy 


86  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY    SIN. 


practice  !  AVhen  she  was  a  little  girl,  only  eight  years 
old,  she  heard  one  person  abuse  another  in  such  a  way 
as  to  commit  a  sin  thereby.  She  was  so  shocked  by 
this  offence  to  God,  that  she  could  not  sleep  all  the 
night  after,  for  weeping  over  the  outrage  committed 
against  the  majesty  of  God.  Sixteen  years  elapsed, 
and  the  saint  probably  had  forgotten  all  about  it; 
when  God,  in  a  revelation,  told  her  that  in  conse- 
quence of  that  act  of  sorrow  for  another's  sin,  there 
was  prepared  for  her  a  special  glory,  which  He  repre- 
sented to  her  under  the  figure  of  a  glorious  flame- 
coloured  garment.  He  who  forgetteth  not  the  cup  of 
cold  water,  can  still  less  forget  these  interior  acts  of 
loving  sorrow  or  of  sorrowing  love.  What  a  treasure 
is  here  for  us,  if  our  love  would  only  be  wakeful  and 
watch  for  the  opportunities  ! 

St.  Bonaventure  says  of  St.  Francis,  that  he  filled 
the  groves  with  his  moanings,  and  everywhere  shed 
tears  and  beat  his  breast,  as  he  murmured  in  his  talk 
with  God,  or  at  times  called  out  with  clamorous  cries, 
begging  mercy  for  sin.  "  Nay,"  says  the  seraphic 
Doctor,  "when  he  saw  souls,  redeemed  with  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  of  Jesus  Christ,  polluted  by  any  stain  of 
sin,  he  wept  over  them  with  such  tenderness  of  com- 
passion, that  it  seemed  as  though,  motherlike,  he  was 
every  day  bringing  them  to  the  birth  in  Christ.  The 
glory  of  God,  the  interests  of  Jesus,  the  love  of  souls, 
60  run  and  blend  into  one  with  the  blessed  patriarch 
of  Assisi,  that  the  three  motives  do  duty  for  each  other. 
He  begins  with  one,  and  ends  with  another;  for,  in 
good  truth,  of  them  it  may  most  reverently  be  said, 
"  And  these  three  are  one." 

St.  Lawrence  Justinian,    the  patriarch  of  Venice, 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  87 


says,*  **  He  cannot  help  sorrowing  for  other  people's 
sins,  who  sorrows  truly  for  his  own.  A  healthy  limb 
on  the  body,  that  helps  not  the  others  when  they  are 
sick,  occupies  its  place  in  vain.  These  members,  like- 
wise, of  the  Church,  who  see  their  brethren's  sin  and 
do  not  weep  over  it,  or  compassionate  the  ruin  of  their 
souls,  are  useless  members.  When  our  Redeemer  wept 
over  the  city  that  was  to  perish,  He  considered  it  the 
more  to  be  deplored  as  it  knew  not  itself  its  deplorable 
condition.  As  many,  therefore,  as  are  set  on  fire  by 
the  torch  of  love,  weep  over  other  men's  sins  as  if  they 
were  their  own.  Yet  no  one  worthily  deplores  the 
sins  of  others,  w^ho  by  voluntary  falls  neglects  his  own. 
We  must  at  least  cease  to  sin  wilfully  if  we  desire  to 
mourn  over  the  falls  of  others."  St.  Augustine  says,*} 
"We  mourn  over  the  sins  of  others,  we  suffer  violence, 
we  are  tormented  in  our  minds."  St.  Chrysostom 
says,  that  Moses  was  raised  above  the  people  because 
he  habitually  deplored  the  sins  of  others.  "  He,"  says 
the  same  holy  Doctor,  "  who  sorrows  for  other  men's 
sins,  has  the  tenderness  of  an  apostle,  and  is  an  imita- 
tor of  that  blessed  one,  who  said,  *  Who  is  weak,  and 
I  am  not  weak  ?  who  is  offended,  and  I  burn  not  V  " 
"Who,"  says  St.  Austin, J  "is  not  angry  when  he 
sees  men  renouncing  the  world,  not  in  deeds  but  in 
words  ?  who  is  not  angry  when  he  sees  the  brethren 
plotting  against  each  other,  and  breaking  faith  with 
each  other,  faith  which  has  been  pledged  in  the  sacra- 
ments of  God  ?  Who  can  count  up  all  the  evils  where- 
by men  provoke  the  Body  of  Christ,  which  liveth  in- 
wardly in  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  and  which  groans  like 

*  Fascic.  Amor,  cap,  14.  f  Serm.  44.  t  In  Psalm  xxx. 


88  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


the  grain  upon  t'le  threshing-floor?  Scarcely  do  wo 
see  those  who  thus  groan,  who  are  thus  angry  (with 
the  sins  of  others,)  for  hardly  do  we  see  any  grain 
when  the  threshing-floor  is  swept.  It  was  because  ho 
saw  none  who  were  thus  angered,  that  he  says,  *  The 
zeal  of  Thine  house  hath  eaten  me  ;'  and  again,  when 
he  saw  many  sinning,  he  said,  *  A  fainting  hath  taken 
hold  of  me,  because  of  the  wricked  who  forsake  Thy 
law ;'  and  again,  *  I  saw  the  fools,  and  I  wasted 
away.'  " 

In  a  similar  strain,  Lancisius  quotes  St.  Chromatius 
of  Aquileia,  whom  St.  Jerome  calls  most  holy  and  most 
learned.  *'  Do  you  wish  to  know  what  the  pious  grief 
of  saints  is  like  ?  Hear  what  is  said  of  the  prophet 
Samuel,  who  mourned  for  King  Saul,  even  to  the  day 
of  his  death.  Jeremias,  also,  when  he  bewailed  the 
sins  of  the  people,  says,  '  My  eyes  have  poured  out 
floods  of  water  over  the  contrition  of  my  people.'  And 
again :  *  Who  will  give  water  to  my  head,  and  a  foun- 
tain of  tears  to  my  eyes?'  Daniel,  also,  was  affected 
with  sorrow  and  heaviness  for  the  sins  of  the  people, 
as  he  himself  testifies,  saying,  'In  those  days  I,  Daniel, 
mourned  the  days  of  three  weeks.  I  ate  no  desirable 
bread,  and  neither  flesh  nor  wine  entered  into  my 
mouth,  neither  was  I  anointed  with  ointment.'  The 
Apostle  mourned  with  a  like  sorrow  over  some  of  the 
Corinthians,  saying,  '  Lest  when  I  come  God  humble 
me  among  you,  and  I  mourn  many  of  them  that  have 
sinned  before,  and  have  not  done  penance.'  This  is 
the  kind  of  grief  which  the  Lord  recompenses  with  the 
consolation  of  perpetual  joy,  as  Isaias  says,^*  'That  Ho 

*  Ixi.  3. 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  89 


will  appoint  to  the  mourners  of  Sion  a  crown  for  ashes, 
the  oil  of  joy  for  mourning,  and  a  garment  of  praise 
for  the  spirit  of  grief.'  ^'* 

Now,  have  we  thought  sufficiently  of  this  ?  Wo  live 
in  a  land  where  we  see  God  offended  every  day  and 
every  hour.  We  see  souls  perishing  for  want  of  faith : 
we  hear  blasphemies  on  all  sides :  "  truths  are  dimi- 
nished among  the  children  of  men."  Does  all  this  grieve 
us  ?  Have  we  felt  it  as  personal  calamity  ?  Or  have 
we  shut  ourselves  selfishly  up  in  our  own  hearts, 
thanking  God,  with  an  unamiable  gratitude,  that  we  at 
least  have  the  true  faith  and  the  living  sacraments,  and 
looking  on  all  the  rest  as  a  doomed  multitude,  who  are 
no  concern  to  us  one  way  or  another?  If  you  have  no 
tic  to  the  souls  of  all  these,  and  indeed,  you  have,  for 
Christ  shed  Ilis  Precious  Blood  for  them  as  well  as 
you,  at  least  you  have  a  tie  to  the  glory  of  God  ;  and 
can  you  feel  that  you  really  love  God,  in  your  own 
sense  of  the  word  love,  if  you  do  not  keenly  feel  His 
dishonour?  But  it  is  not  to  upbraid  you  that  I  write 
— God  forbid !  for,  see  how  warmly  you  have  corre- 
sponded all  along  to  the  spirit  of  our  Confraternity  ;  it 
is  rather  to  explain  to  you  and  urge  upon  you  the 
practices  which  will  cultivate  that  sweet  spirit  more 
and  more.  Hear,  then,  what  God  said  to  Sfc.  Catherine 
of  Siena :+  "  It  is  with  reason  that  you,  My  elect, 
are  in  bitter  grief  of  heart  because  of  the  offences  I  am 
continually  receiving  from  men,  and  out  of  compassion 
for  their  culpable  ignorance,  by  which  they  gravely 
sin  against  Me,  to  the  damage,  nay,  to  the  condemna- 
tion of  their  own  souls.     This  I  gratefully  accept  froip 

*  Ap.  Lands,  ii.  2ii.  t  Dial.  c.  28. 


90  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY    SIN. 


you,  and  it  is  My  wish  that  you  should  act  so."  See 
also  what  was  the  experience  of  the  B.  Angela  of 
Foligno  in  this  matter.  Before  her  death,  she  made  a 
sort  of  devout  will,  in  which  she  bequeathed  certain 
admonitions  to  her  spiritual  children,  and  this  is  one : 
*'  I  tell  you  that  my  soul  has  received  more  from  God 
when  I  mourned  for  the  sins  of  others,  than  when  I 
grieved  for  my  own.  The  world  makes  light  of  what 
I  say,  that  a  man  can  deplore  his  neighbour's  sins  as 
much  as  his  own,  yea,  more  than  his  own,  because  it 
seems  to  be  contrary  to  nature ;  but  the  charity  which 
does  so  is  not  of  this  world." 

"When  St.  Ignatius  was  living  in  the  house  of  John 
Pascal,  at  Barcelona,  and  was  spending  the  night  in 
prayer,  he  Avas  seen  raised  to  some  height  above  the 
ground,  and  the  whole  room  illuminated  with  the 
brightness  which  proceeded  from  his  face,  while  he 
kept  repeating  over  and  over  again  these  words  :  "  0 
my  Lord,  my  heart,  my  beloved !  Oh,  if  men  did  but 
know  Thee,  they  would  never  sin  V  Thus  it  is  said 
of  Father  Peter  Faber,  the  companion  of  St.  Ignatius, 
that  he  had  an  abiding  sadness  of  mind  because  he 
was  touched  to  the  quick  by  the  sight  of  men  sinning. 
As  St.  Augustine  says  :*  "  This  is  the  persecution 
which  all  suffer  who  desire  to  live  piously  in  Christ, 
according  to  the  true  and  biting  sentence  of  the  apostle. 
For  what  persecutes  the  life  of  the  good  more  sharply 
than  the  life  of  the  wicked,  not  because  it  forces  the 
good  to  imitate  what  displeases  them,  but  because  it 
compels  them  to  grieve  over  the  life  they  behold? 
For,  in  the  sight  of  a  pious  man,  an  evil  liver,  though 


*  Epist.141, 


LOVE    WOUNDED    BY    SIN.  91 


he  docs  not  oblige  him  to  consent  to  his  sin,  yet  tor- 
tures him  with  the  sight  and  sorrow  of  it."  Thus  it 
is  said  of  the  B.  Clare  of  Montefalco,  in  her  life,  that 
when  she  heard  of  any  one  in  mortal  sin,  she  turned 
at  once  to  the  crucifix,  ■  and  weeping  inconsolably, 
and  sighing  from  the  bottom  of  her  heart,  she  said, 
"  Ah,  then,  and  is  all  lost,  so  far  as  this  soul  is  con- 
cerned, which  my  Lord  suffered  for  it  V*  And  then, 
unable  to  bear  the  thought,  she  prostrated  herself  upon 
the  ground,  and  prayed  for  the  conversion  of  the 
sinner. 

Oh  that  there  were  such  a  heart  in  us  that  we  could 
make  these  dispositions  our  own  !  Oh  that  we  felt  sin 
to  be  indeed  the  one  solitary  evil  of  the  world !  Oh 
that  the  hunger  and  thirst  after  the  glory  of  our  most 
dear  Lord  were  consuming  us  all  the  day  long !  Yet 
how  soon  these  feelings  come,  if  only  we  set  ourselves 
in  earnest  to  seek  them,  and  to  ask  them  of  God. 
What  does  He  want  but  to  be  loved — loved  always, 
loved  everywhere ;  and  how,  then,  if  we  ask  this  love 
of  Ilim,  can  He  refuse  it  to  us?  Why  not  turn  all 
our  prayers  into  one,  and  pray  early  and  late  for  more 
love  of  God  ?  But  you  may  say,  In  what  ways  are  we 
to  practise  this  sorrow  for  the  sins  of  others  ? 

1.  AVe  should  strive  in  our  meditations  to  see  how 
God  ought  to  be  served  and  glorified  by  His  creatures. 
We  should  put  before  ourselves  His  infinite  perfections 
and  attributes,  His  beauty  and  loveliness  in  Himself. 
We  should  picture  to  ourselves  the  perfect  obedience 
with  which  His  will  is  done  in  Heaven,  and  try  to 
unite  ourselves  with  the  interior  dispositions  of  the 
Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  of  the  Immaculate  Heart  of 
Mary,  and  all  the  hierarchies  and  choirs  of  angels. 


92  LOVE    ^^OUNDED    BY    SIN. 


We  should  count  up  the  benefits  and  blessings  which 
in  His  infinite  love  lie  has  bestowed  upon  Hid  crea- 
tures, and  especially  in  the  four  great  wonders  of 
mercy,  Creation,  the  Incarnation,  the  Holy  Eucharist, 
and  the  Beatific  Vision.  Then,  wdien  we  have  worked 
this  well  into  our  minds,  we  shall  see  what  sin  really 
is,  how  terrible  it  is  to  ofiiend  so  great  a  majesty,  how 
base  beyond  words  to  tell  to  wound  so  unutterable  a 
love.  We  shall  then  hardly  be  able  to  leave  the  house 
and  follow  our  worldly  occupations,  without  finding 
food  for  this  sorrow  over  sin.  At  every  st-ep  almost 
we  shall  be  called  upon  to  make  acts  of  reparation  to 
the  injured  glory  of  God.  The  amount  of  the  world's 
forgetfulness  of  God  will  strike  us  every  day  as  more 
and  more  astonishing.  So  far  from  getting  used  to  it, 
the  more  the  beauty  and  the  tenderness  of  God's  ma- 
jesty grow  into  us,  the  more  will  the  hatefulness  of  sin 
come  upon  us  with  all  the  startling  force  of  novelty. 
The  sort  of  common  consent  by  which  men  ignore  God, 
His  rights,  His  claims,  and  His  interests,  will  seem  to 
us  almost  more  hideous  than  overt  acts  of  sin.  Life 
will  become  a  burden,  the  world  feel  as  a  strange  and 
unhomelike  place,  and  a  blessed  weariness  will  come 
over  us,  which  will  find  no  repose  but  upon  the  sweet 
and  satisfying  thought  of  God. 

2.  Another  method  of  practising  this  sorrow  for  sin 
is  the  one  suggested  by  St.  Bernard  to  Pope  Eugenius  :* 
"  Lift  up  the  eyes  of  your  reflection,  and  behold  the 
nations.  Are  they  not  rather  dry  for  the  fire  than 
white  for  the  harvest  ?  How  much  is  there  that  looks 
like   fruit,  which   yet,   on   nearer   inspection,  is   but 

*  De  Conaid.  U.  6. 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  93 


briers  ?  Nay,  not  even  briers,  but  old  and  knotted 
trees,  bearing  only  such  mast  and  acorns  as  the  swine 
can  eat."  Take  the  map  of  the  world ;  look  first  at 
Asia,  where  our  Lord  was  born  and  suffered.  Look  at 
Turkey,  Persia,  Tartary,  China,  Japan,  and  the  vast 
continent  of  India:  how  few  Christians  are  to  be 
found  in  the  whole  extent !  Fearful  systems  of  idola- 
try, the  foul  creed  of  Mohammed,  communities  bear- 
ing the  name  of  Christ,  yet  in  truth  denying  it  in 
heresy  and  schism, — these  exercise  an  .almost  unlimited 
sway  over  those  beautiful  regions,  and  only  here  and 
there  is  there  one  to  be  found  who  calls  on  the  saving 
Name  of  Jesus,  and  worships  His  Precious  Blood.  Yet 
there  was  man  created,  and  Eden  planted ;  there  was 
the  home  of  the  chosen  people ;  there  the  Son  of  God 
taught  and  suffered ;  there  the  apostles  preached,  and 
Athanasius,  Basil,  Gregory,  and  Chrysostom  upheld 
the  faith,  and  trampled  upon  heresy.  As  to  Japan  and 
China,  their  very  soil  is  soaked  with  the  blood  of  our 
dear  Lord's  martyrs.  Yet  how  scanty  the  harvest  of 
Ilis  glory. 

Look  along  the  Mediterranean  shores  of  Africa,  where 
once  above  four  hundred  bishops  had  their  thrones,  and 
then  into  the  vast  regions  of  the  Moors,  the  Hottentots, 
and  Caffres !  On  how  many  leagues  of  country  the  sun 
shines  where  none  call  on  Jesus,  or  know  of  His  blessed 
Cross !  America  is  better,  and  so  also  is  Australia ; 
for  thanks  to  the  Spaniards  and  the  Irish,  there  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  Gospel  there.  Yet  how  many  tribes 
are  still  unconverted,  and  how  many  millions  of  hero- 
tics  bear  the  Christian  name  in  vain  !  Look,  too,  how 
heresy  has  eaten  into  the  fair  fields  of  Europe !  Russia, 
Sweden,  Penmark,  Germany,  Scotland,  England,  aro 


y4  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


all  more  or  less  its  prey,  and  multitudes  are  daily 
passing  into  perdition  within  the  sound  of  the  true 
Gospel,  and  wi thing  reach  of  the  holy  sacraments  !  This 
was  the  picture  that  St.  Lawrence  Justinian  looked 
upon  when  he  wrote  his  treatise  on  the  Complaint  of 
Christian  Perfection.  This  was  the  picture  God 
Himself  beheld  when  He  complained  so  bitterly  to  St. 
Catherine  of  Siena  that  priests  and  prelates  cared  not 
for  His  glory,  and  in  their  idleness  and  self-seeking 
trod  His  dear  interests  under  foot.  Oh  what  a  field  is 
there  here  for  acts  of  love !  Think  of  the  day  when 
the  compassionate  Creator  looked  over  His  own  beauti- 
ful creation,  virgin  and  undefiled,  and  blessed  it  be- 
cause it  was  all  so  good.  Think  of  the  day  when,  to 
bring  baek  that  primal  benediction,  nay,  to  give  it  a 
new  and  better  benediction,  Jesus  hung  upon  the  Cross 
on  Calvary.  And  this  is  the  result! — this  is  the 
sinner's  recompense  to  God !  As  our  thoughts  wander 
on,  and  our  eyes  rest  on  the  coloured  provinces  of  Mo- 
hammedans, heathens,  and  heretics,  do  we  not  feel 
drawn  to  offer  to  God  all  the  acts  of  adoration  which 
the  angels  have  made  this  day  in  heaven,  in  reparation 
for  the  glory  these  poor  outcasts  have  not  given  Him  ? 
Another  while  we  resort  to  the  merits  of  Jesus  Himself, 
to  the  heroic  virtues  of  His  ever-blessed  Mother,  to  the 
apostles,  martyrs,  virgins,  doctors,  confessors,  that  we 
may  supply  with  loving  intention  the  praise  that  should 
arise  to  the  Divine  Majesty  from  all  these  tribes  and 
nations. 

3.  Another  practice  is  suggested  by  F.  Balthazar 
Alvarez,  St.  Theresa's  confessor.  It  is  to  journey  over 
the  world  in  spirit,  and  visit  the  many  churches  and 
tabernacles  where  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is  reserved. 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  95 


and  so  few  come  in  to  visit  the  Love  of  our  souls.  *'  Tho 
streets/'  says  he,  "are  full,  but  the  churches  arc  empty. 
Crowds  are  eagerly  intent  on  their  own  interests,  and 
so  few  come  to  commune  with  Jesus  about  His!" 
St.  Alphonso,  also,  with  his  usual  thoughtful  sweetness, 
suggests  to  us  how  many  churches  there  are  where 
Jesus  is  obliged  to  dwell  in  filth,  disorder,  and  neglect, 
and  where  from  week's  end  to  week's  end  no  one  cornea 
to  visit  Him.  With  what  childlike  acts  of  love,  ever 
varying,  yet  ever  tender,  may  we  not  pour  out  our 
hearts  before  Ilim  in  all  these  deserted  sanctuaries  I 
Can  we  not  muse  on  Jesus  thus  abandoned  till  our 
hearts  grow  hot,  and  the  tears  come  into  our  eyes  ;  and 
oh  how  acceptable  to  Ilim  is  this  little  offering  of  heart- 
felt sorrow !  He  loves  to  be  remembered,. as  all  lovers 
do  ;  and  nothing  is  little  in  His  sight  which  is  done  for 
the  love  of  Him,  for  His  love  transmutes  and  magnifies 
it  all. 

I  do  not  say  that  you  should  faint  at  the  bare  name 
of  sin,  as  saints  have  done :  such  things  require  a 
special  grace  and  great  heights  of  love.  But  some 
little  you  can  do  in  reparation  and  in  sorrow  for  the 
sins  of  the  world,  and  out  of  that  little,  be  it  ever  so 
little,  God  will  have  great  glory,  and  we  shall  comfort 
one  another's  hearts. 

Yet,  as  I  said  before,  we  must  not  forget  to  sorrow 
for  our  own  sins  also,  and  to  sorrow  for  them  chiefly 
as  offences  against  a  God  so  infinitely  good  and  loving. 
"  If  we  grieve  and  sorrow  for  our  sins,"  says  St.  Chry- 
sostom,  "  we  lessen  the  magnitude  of  our  sin ;  what 
was  great  we  make  small,  nay,  oftentimes  we  do  away 
with  it  altogether."  And  St.  Basil,  commenting  on 
those  words,  "  Thou  has  turned  my  weeping  into  joy," 


LOVE   AVOUNDED    BY    SIN. 


Bays,  "  It  is  not  every  one  into  whose  soul  God  infuses 
joy,  but  into  his  ^yho  has  deplored  his  sin  with  vehement 
grief,  and  with  assiduous  lamentation,  as  if  he  wept  for 
himself  dead ;  for  such  weeping  turns  to  joy  at  last." 
"  We  ought  to  bear  our  sins  in  mind,''  says  St.  Chry- 
sostom  again,  *'  for  not  only  do  we  extinguish  them  by 
so  doing,  but  we  become  gentler  and  more  indulgent 
toward  others,  and  we  serve  God  with  greater  tender- 
ness, having  from  that  memory  of  our  sins  a  better 
insight  into  His  inestimable  goodness."  Scripture 
tells  us,  "  Be  not  without  fear  of  a  forgiven  sin  ;"* 
and,  indeed,  such  a  fear  will  be  the  best  security 
against  another  fall.  Some  saints  tell  us  that  if  we 
knew  by  divine  revelation  that  our  sins  were  forgiven, 
we  should  still  sorrow  for  them,  as  David  did  when  such 
a  revelation  was  vouchsafed  him,  and  St.  Paul,  who  was 
confirmed  in  grace ;  for  such  a  sorrow  is  continually 
feeding  our  love  of  God.  St.  Udo  mentions  a  most 
interesting  thing  in  his  life  of  St.  Gerard,  who  used  to 
feel  after  his  conversion  the  greatest  compunction  for 
the  most  trifling  defects,  just  as  St.  Jerome  tells  us  of 
St.  Paula.  Now  God  made  known  to  St.  Gerard  that 
the  grave  sins  of  his  past  life  were  remitted  to  him, 
because  of  this  holy  sorrow  for  venial  faults  committed 
since  his  conversion.  Yet  in  this  sorrow  we  must  not 
be  excessive ;  we  must  consider  our  sins  more  in  the 
general  than  in  the  particular,  and,  above  all,  as  was 
revealed  to  St.  Catherine,  it  should  be  rather  a  recol- 
lection of  the  Precious  Blood,  and  a  pondering  of  the 
Divine  Mercy,  than  a  dry  study  of  our  sins,  according 
to  the  advice  of  St.  Bernard :  ''  I  advise  you,  my  friends, 

*  Ecclus.  V.  5. 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  97 


occasionally  to  draw  back  from  the  annoying  and  anxious 
scrutiny  of  your  waj^s,  and  to  go  out  upon  the  wider 
and  serener  paths  of  the  Divine  benefits.  Sorrow  for 
ein  is  indeed  necessary,  but  it  should  not  be  continual. 
We  should  interpolate  it  with  the  more  joyous  thought 
of  God's  compassion.  We  must  mingle  honey  with 
our  wormwood,  or  else  its  bitterness  will  not  bo 
healthy." 

Life  is  but  a  very  little  while,  compared  with  eter- 
nity ;  and  throughout  eternity  we  shall  be  infinitely 
happy,  and  yet  have  but  one  occupation — to  give  glory 
to  God.  AVe  shall  literally  have  nothing  else  to  do. 
And  this  single  task  will  contain  in  itself  such  trea- 
sures of  bliss,  that  there  will  be  nothing  left  that  wo 
can  desire.  Why  not  begin  this  work  on  earth  ?  Why 
not  try  even  now  to  fall  in  love  with  that  dear  glory 
of  God  which  will  be  our  joy  and  worship  in  the  life  to 
come  ?  The  character  of  God's  goodness  is  to  be  com- 
municative. He  is  always  communicating  Himself  to 
His  creatures,  in  nature,  in  grace,  in  glory.  We  must 
copy  this  example.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  selfish 
goodness,  thinking  only  about  our  own  selves  and  our 
own  souls.  Indeed,  this  does  seem  a  great  matter, 
when  we  see  so  many  thousands  round  about  us  who 
hardly  realize  that  they  have  souls  at  all.  Yet  it  is 
dangerous  to  dwell  exclusively  on  this.  And  who  can 
have  the  Precious  Blood,  and  know  what  it  is,  and  feel 
what  it  does,  and  yet  not  long  to  pass  it  on  to  other 
souls  ?  I  would  we  could  always  do  all  things  for  the 
sole  glory  of  God ;  but  this  can  hardly  be.  Yet  we 
may  all  do,  without  effort,  much  more  than  we  have 
done,  if  we  will  only  try  to  sorrow  ever  sin.  over  the 
Q  9 


98  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY    SIN. 


sins  of  the  whole  world,  because  our  Blessed  Lord  God 
is  so  deeply  ojffended  by  them. 

Neither  is  this  devotion  without  immense  blessing* 
to  our  own  souls.  What  hinders  us  most,  when  we 
have  once  set  to  work  to  serve  God  in  good  earnest,  is 
not  so  much  sin  as  worldliness  and  self-love.  Now  see 
how  both  these  miseries,  which  so  hang  about  us,  keep 
us  down,  and  adulterate  all  the  good  we  do ;  see  how 
both  of  them  are  kept  in  check  by  this  devotion.  The 
characteristic  of  the  world  is  that  it  ignores  sin.  Things 
are  right  or  wrong  as  it  pleases,  and  according  to  its 
own  canons ;  but  as  to  a  secret  stain  upon  the  im- 
mortal soul  because  the  invisible  God  is  offended,  this 
it  will  not  hear  of  for  a  moment.  It  is  reckoned  a 
doctrine  to  unman  people,  an  idle  bugbear,  a  priestly 
superstition.  A  man  who  sees  every  thing  as  sin  or 
not  sin,  who  seeks  everywhere  the  secret  glory  of  the 
hidden  Creator,  who  follows  unearthly  standards,  and 
uses  unearthly  weights  and  measures,  who  strives  to 
dp  the  commonest  actions  from  supernatural  motives, 
and  who  can  love  what  he  does  not  see,  until  he  loses 
the  power  of  loving,  or  at  least  of  loving  vehemently, 
what  he  does  see,  can  hardly  be  possessed  either  by  the 
spirit  of  worldliness  or  of  self-love.  His  life  is  a  pro- 
test against  the  world,  and  also  against  himself.  Yet 
this  is  only  a  description  of  what  a  man  would  soon 
become  who  took  up  this  devotion.  He  who  looks 
long  and  lovingly  on  God  will  soon  cease  to  see  any 
loveliness  in  himself;  and  thus  this  practice  would 
deliver  him  from  the  two  greatest  enemies  he  has  in 
the  spiritual  life. 

We  should  find  also  that  this  devotion  would  give  us 
great  power  with  God.     Answers  to  prayers  would 


LOVE   WOUNDED    BY   SIN.  99 


begin  to  come  more  thickly  upon  us  than  before.  Our 
words  would  have  a  weight  beyond  themselve,!,  or 
beyond  our  talents,  reasoning,  or  eloquence.  What  is 
worth  any  thing  which  God  has  not  blessed  ?  Spiritual 
power  is  the  only  real  power  ;  and  it  follows  different 
rules  from  other  power.  When  St.  Vincent  of  Paul 
founded  his  Congregation  of  the  mission,  Father  Con- 
dren,  the  superior  of  the  French  Oratory,  and  one  of 
the  most  spiritual  men  of  his  day,  said  to  him,  "  Ah  I 
my  ftither !  I  recognise  that  this  is  the  work  of  God, 
and  that  the  spirit  of  Jesus  is  upon  it,  and  that  it  will 
succeed,  for  all  the  men  are  of  low  birth,  and  none  of 
them  of  learning.  This  is  the  sort  of  weapon  to  which 
God  gives  power."  See  on  what  unworldly  principles 
his  judgment  was  formed.  St.  Philip  made  out  that 
all  power  was  in  detachment  from  the  world  ;  and  the 
work  of  St.  Ignatius  may  be  summed  up  in  one  woid, 
that  he  proved  this  to  the  world — this  very  thing,  that 
detachment  is  its  master.  So  do  you  take  up  this 
devotion  to  God's  offended  glory,  and  you  will  see  by 
many  a  sensible  proof  that  God  is  with  you  in  other 
more  abundant  and  more  effectual  ways  than  he  has 
been  heretofore. 

And,  lastly,  if  you  wish  to  press  on  toward  the  prize 
of  Christian  perfection,  and  to  become  a  saint,  listen  to 
this  story,  listen  to  what  happens  to  a  man  who  haa 
done  no  more  than  this,  hindered  two  mortal  sins  from 
being  consummated  in  outward  acts.  St.  Paphnutius 
had  dwelt  in  the  desert  for  many  a  long  year,  and  by 
weary  penances  had  toiled  for  his  sanctification.  At 
last  a  strange  thought  came  into  his  mind,  and  he  ven- 
tured to  express  it  in  prayer  to  God.  He  desired  to 
know  to  whom  on  the  earth  he  was  equal  in  sanctity. 


100  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


He  asked  it  in  simplicity  and  true  humility,  and  God 
vouchsafed  to  speak  to  him.  He  told  him  he  was  now 
equal  to  a  certain  piper  in  an  Egyptian  village  that  He 
named.  At  once  the  saint  set  forth  to  seek  him.  AVhen 
he  came  to  the  village  he  asked  for  the  piper,  and  was 
told  he  was  piping  in  the  tavern  for  the  amusement  of 
those  who  were  drinking  there.  Strange  1  thought  St. 
Paphnutius.  However,  he  sought  the  piper  out,  led 
him  aside,  and  spoke  to  him  of  his  spiritual  state. 
What  good  works  had  he  done  ?  Good  works  !  rejoined 
the  piper ;  I  know  of  nothing  good  that  I  have  ever 
done ;  but  once,  when  I  was  a  robber,  I  saved  from 
violence  a  virgin  consecrated  to  God  ;  and  once,  also,  I 
gave  money  to  a  poor  woman,  who,  out  of  poverty,  was 
offering  herself  to  sin.  And  then  Paphnutius  under- 
stood how  God  had  given  to  that  piper  graces  equal  to 
his  own,  because  for  his  Maker's  glory  he  had  in  his 
rough  robber-days  hindered  two  mortal  sins. 

But  we  cannot  better  illustrate  how  this  sorrow  for 
other  men's  sins  may  be  effective,  as  well  as  affective, 
that  is,  may  be  expressed  in  deeds  as  well  as  feelings, 
than  by  giving  the  practices  recommended  by  a  spiritual 
writer*  for  the  days  of  the  carnival.  He  entitles  them, 
Devotions  which  are  often  performed  by  souls  loving 
God,  on  the  days  of  the  Carnival,  and  at  other  times 
when  worldly  men  usually  sin  against  God  more  than 
usual. 

1.  To  abstain  at  that  season  with  more  than  com- 
mon care  from  some  particular  fault  which  ordinarily 
besets  us. 

*  Lancia.  De  Pnes.  Pei,  8l. 


LOVE    WOUiXDEI)    BY    SIN.  101 


2.  To  increase  our  time  of  prayer  by  adding  at  least 
half  an  hour  to  it. 

3.  To  read  longer  than  usual,  say  for  an  hour,  some 
spiritual  book,  not  one  which  Avill  feed  curiosity,  but 
one  which  will  excite  pious  affections  toward  God,  such 
as  the  Confessions  of  St.  Augustine,  the  Imitation  of 
Christ,  and  the  Lives  of  the  Saints. 

4.  To  afflict  our  bodies  with  some  new  penance,  or 
to  prolong  some  customary  penance  beyond  its  usual 
time. 

5.  To  visit  the  Blessed  Sacrament  more  frequently 
on  these  days ;  and  when  we  have  finished  our  usual 
devotions,  to  excite  in  ourselves  a  feeling  of  compassion 
for  our  offended  God,  just  as  we  visit  our  friends  to 
console  them  and  show  our  love  to  them  in  times  of 
sorrow ;  also  to  shed  tears,  or  at  least  to  weep  in  our 
hearts,  for  the  sins  of  this  season,  especially  for  the  sins 
of  those  who  either  by  reason  of  their  condition,  or  of 
the  many  benefits  they  have  received  from  God,  ought 
the  more  scrupulously  to  abstain  from  offending  Him. 

6.  Every  time  the  clock  strikes,  to  make  a  brief  but 
affectionate  act  of  sorrow  for  the  sins  of  the  season : 
this  may  be  done  in  any  way,  walking,  or  at  meals,  &c. 

7.  At  least  three  times  in  the  day,  with  a  most  pro- 
found genuflexion,  and  with  great  feeling,  to  adore  the 
Divine  Majesty  toward  the  four  quarters  of  the  world, 
in  which  God  is  at  this  time  being  so  grievously  offend- 
ed, desiring  in  some  sort  of  way  to  compensate  by  this 
loving  adoration,  for  the  sins  which  are  then  being  com- 
mitted in  those  regions,  grieving  for  them,  and  asking 
for  their  remission  and  for  the  conversion  of  sinners, 
and  for  that  end  offering  up  the  Precious  Blood  and 
merits  of  Jesus  Christ,  which  are  most  dear  to  God  and 

9* 


102  LOVl    WOUNDED    BY    SIN. 


most  profitable  to  sinners.    It  was  thus  St.  Mary  Mag- 
dalene of  Pazzi  obtained  the  conversion  of  many  sinners. 

8.  To  do  our  ordinary  good  works  on  these  days 
more  perfectly,  diligently,  and  fervently,  especially 
those  which  relate  to  the  immediate  worship  of  God. 
For,  as  at  these  seasons  worldly  men  and  the  servants 
of  the  devil  are  more  diligent  and  fervent  in  oiSending 
God,  it  is  but  right  that  souls  loving  God  should  be  at 
least  in  the  same  proportion  more  diligent  and  fervent 
in  well-doing  and  in  divine  worship. 

9.  To  make  an  additional  communion  in  order  to  ap- 
pease God,  and  to  worship  Him  by  our  loving  repara- 
tion. 

10.  As  God  is  especially  offended  on  these  days  by 
excesses  in  eating  and  drinking,  to  mortify  our  appe- 
tite somewhat  more  than  usual  either  in  quantity  or 
quality. 

11.  As  God  is  also  especially  offended  at  such  times 
by  immodest  conversations,  to  agree  with  some  pious 
friend  to  meet  and  spend  a  short  time  daily  in  spiritual 
conference,  simply  to  give  pleasure  and  consolation  to 
our  good  God. 

12.  As  men  are  especially  guilty  at  such  times  of 
sinful  idleness,  to  take  more  than  common  care  about 
the  spending  of  our  time,  so  that  apart  from  innocent 
and  proper  recreation,  no  part  of  it  should  pass  in  idle- 
ness and  inutility,  but  rather  to  be  more  industrious 
than  usual. 

13.  Those  who  are  under  any  vows  should  on  these 
days  renew  them  with  fresh  acts  of  love  to  God,  a  de- 
votion suggested  to  us  by  our  Lord's  fixing  the  Thurs- 
day before  Quinquagesima  for  espousing  St.  Catherine 
of  Siena. 


LOVE    WOUNDED    BY   SIN.  103 


In  England  the  place  of  the  Carnival  would  be  of 
course  supplied  by  the  days  folloAving  the  three  feasts 
of  Christmas,  Easter,  and  Pentecost.  There  are  none 
whose  work  lies  among  souls  who  do  not  know  by 
painful  experience  the  horrors  of  these  three  seasons 
among  us ;  and  it  is  so  difficult  to  speak  strongly 
against  cheap  excursions,  railway-trips,  and  such  like 
miseries,  that  no  remedy  seems  left  but  prayer  and  re- 
paration. To  pray  for  rain  on  such  days  sounds  ill- 
natured,  yet  it  may  hinder  multitudes  of  sins.  Many 
a  ruin  of  modesty  and  innocence  dates  from  a  cheap 
trip,  and  many  a  soul  has  been  shipwrecked  on  the 
harmless  river  between  London  Bridge  and  Rosherville. 

There  are  three  very  beautiful  revelations  by  which 
God  has  been  pleased  to  make  known  how  acceptable  to 
His  Divine  Majesty  is  this  reparation  at  the  Carnival. 
One  is  to  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  the  Dominican  ;  the- 
other  two  to  St.  Gertrude.  I  will  quote  one  of  these  last, 
as  embodying  the  spirit  which  I  am  anxious  this  trea- 
tise should  convey.  It  is  from  the  fourth  book  of  her 
Insinuations  of  Divine  Piety. 

At  the  time  of  the  Carnival,  the  Lord  Jesus  appeared 
to  her  sitting  upon  the  throne  of  His  Glory,  and  St. 
John  the  Evangelist  was  sitting  at  our  Lord's  feet, 
writing.  The  saint  asked  him  what  he  was  writing. 
Our  Lord  answered  for  him.  I  am  having  every  one 
of  the  devotions  your  congregation  offered  to  Me  yes- 
terday, and  all  those  they  are  going  to  offer  these  next 
two  days,  carefully  noted  down  in  this  paper.  And 
when  I,  to  whom  the  Father  has  committed  all  judg- 
ment, shall  faithfully  render  to  every  one  after  his 
death,  "good"  measure  for  all  the  labours  of  his  pious 
Tvorks,  and  shall  add  moreover  the  measure  "  pressed 


104  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY    SIN. 


down"  of  My  most  salutary'-  Passion  and  Deatli,  where- 
by all  man's  merit  is  marvellously  ennobled,  I  will 
take  them  with  this  paper  to  the  Father,  that  lie  also, 
out  of  the  omnipotence  of  His  paternal  kindness,  may 
superadd  to  them  Ilis  measure  "  shaken  together  and 
running  over,"  for  these  benefits  kindly  done  to  Me  in 
this  persecution  by  which  worldly  men  on  these  days 
harass  Me.  For,  as  none  are  equal  to  Me  in  f^iithful- 
ness,  much  less  oan  I  omit  to  recompense  My  benefac- 
tors, seeing  that  even  King  David,  who  all  his  life 
through  never  omitted  to  heap  kindnesses  on  his  bene- 
factors, yet,  when  he  came  to  die,  and  committed  his 
kingdom  to  Solomon,  said  to  him,  "  Thou  shalt  show 
favour  to  the  sons  of  Berzellai,  the  Galaadite,  and  they 
shall  eat  at  thy  table,  for  they  came  to  meet  me  when 
I  fled  from  the  face  of  thy  brother  Absalom."  A  kind- 
ness shown  to  men  in  the  time  of  adversity  is  more  ac- 
ceptable than  in  the  time  of  prosperity ;  so  I  the  more 
gratefully  accept  this  fidelity  which  is  shown  to  Me 
when  the  world  is  especially  persecuting  Me  with  sin. 
The  Blessed  John,  sitting  and  writing,  seemed  some- 
times to  dip  his  pen  into  an  inkhorn  which  he  held  in 
his  hand,  and  out  of  it  to  write  black  letters,  and  some- 
times he  dipped  it  into  the.  loving  Wound  of  the  Side 
of  Jesus,  which  stood  open  before  him,  and  out  of  that 
he  wrote  red  letters.  Again,  he  touched  up  the  red 
letters,  partly  with  black  and  partly  with  gold.  And 
the  saint  understood  that  by  the  black  letters  were 
indicated  those  works  which  the  religious  did  from 
custom,  as  the  fast  which  they  commonly  begin  on  this 
Monday.  By  the  red  letters  were  expressed  those 
works  which  were  done  in  memory  of  the  Passion  of 
Jesus  Christ,  with  a  special  intention  for  the  emenda* 


LOVE    WOUNDED    BY    SIN.  105 


tion  of  tho  Church.  As  to  the  red  letters  partly 
blackened  and  partly  gilded,  she  understood  that  by 
those  partly  blackened  were  meant  works  done  in 
memory  of  our  Lord's  Passion,  to  obtain  for  ourselves 
the  grace  of  God,  and  other  gifts  concerning  our  own 
salvation.  Those  works,  on  the  contrary,  which  were 
done  purely  for  the  glory  of  God,  in  union  with  Christ's 
Passion,  and  for  the  salvation  of  all  men,  renouncing 
all  merit,  reward,  and  favour,  simply  to  give  praise  and 
show  love  to  God,  were  expressed  by  the  red  letters, 
partially  gilded.  For  although  the  foregoing  works 
obtain  from  God  a  copious  remuneration,  those  which 
are  done  purely  for  the  love  of  God's  praise  are  of  much 
greater  merit  and  dignity,  and  confer  upon  a  man  an 
infinitely  greater  augmentation  of  eternal  bliss. 

She  then  perceived  that  after  every  two  paragraphs 
there  was  a  vacant  place,  and  she  asked  our  Lord  what 
that  denoted.  lie  replied :  "  As  it  is  your  custom  to 
serve  Me  at  this  season  with  devout  desires  and  prayers 
in  memory  of  My  Passion,  I  have  first  the  thoughts 
and  then  the  words,  by  which  you  serve  Me,  carefully 
written  down,  every  one  of  them.  The  vacant  place 
means  this,  that  the  works  which  you  do,  you  are  not 
accustomed  to  do,  like  the  thoughts  and  words,  in 
memory  of  my  Passion."  The  saint  rejoined :  "  And 
how,  0  most  loving  God  !  can  we  laudably  do  this  V 
Our  Lord  replied :  "  By  keeping  all  fasts,  vigils,  and 
other  regular  observances  in  union  with  my  Passion. 
And  whensoever  you  refrain  yourself  in  seeing,  hear- 
ing, speaking,  and  the  like,  always  offer  it  to  Me  in 
union  with  that  love  whereby  I  refrained  all  My  senses 
in  My  Passion.  AVith  one  glance  I  could  have  terrified 
all  My  adversaries,  with  one  word  I  could  have  con* 


106  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


ncted  of  falsehood  all  who  contradicted  Me  ;  yet  was  I 
like  a  sheep  led  to  the  slaughter,  with  My  head  humbly 
bowed  down,  and  My  eyes  fixed  upon  the  ground ;  and 
before  my  judge  I  open  not  My  mouth  for  so  much  as 
one  word  of  excuse  from  the  false  charges  laid  against 
Me."  The  saint  answers:  "Teach  me,  0  best  of 
teachers,  at  least  one  thing  which  I  may  do  especially 
in  memory  of  Thy  Passion."  Our  Lord  replied :  "  Take, 
then,  this  practice,  to  pray  with  your  arms  extended, 
thus  expressing  the  form  of  My  Passion  to  God  the 
Father,  for  the  emendation  of  the  Universal  Church,  in 
union  with  that  love  wherewith  I  stretched  out  My 
hands  upon  the  Cross."  And  she  said  :  "  And  as  this 
is  not  a  common  devotion,  should  I  seek  out  secret 
places  to  practise  it  in  V  And  our  Lord  answered : 
"  This  custom  of  seeking  out  secret  places  pleases  Me 
well,  and  is  a  fresh  adornment  to  the  work,  as  the  gem 
adorns  the  necklace.  Yet,"  He  added,  "  if  any  one 
should  bring  this  devotion  of  praying  with  extended 
arms  into  common  use,  he  need  fear  no  contradiction, 
and  he  will  pay  Me  the  same  honour  as  one  pays  a 
king  who  solemnly  enthrones  him." 

What  is  it,  then,  for  which  I  am  pleading  ?  Only 
for  this :  that  you  should  not  altogether  cut  your- 
selves off  from  the  glory  of  God,  as  if  it  was  no  con- 
cern of  yours,  and  that  you  and  He  were  not  in  part- 
nership !  This  is  really  all.  God  is  going  to  give  you 
His  glory  for  your  own  in  heaven  to  all  eternity.  Surely 
you  cannot  altogether  disclaim  connection  with  it  now : 
surely  its  interests  very  much  concern  you  ;  its  success 
must  be  your  success,  and  its  failure  your  failure  too. 
You  cannot  stand  aloof  from  the  cause  of  Jesus  on 
earth,  and  even  keep  up  a  sort  of  armed  neutrality 


LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN.  107 


with  God,  when  you  desire  as  soon  as  ever  you  die, 
without  so  much  as  tasting  the  sharpness  of  purgatory, 
to  be  locked  in  Ilis  closest  embrace  of  unutterable  love 
for  evermore.  Yet  this  is  the  plain  English  of  the 
lives  of  most  Catholics.  And  can  any  thing  be  more 
unreasonable,  more  ungenerous,  more  mean !  And  you 
wonder  we  have  not  converted  England !  Verily  we 
do  not  look  like  a  people  who  have  come  to  kindle  a 
fire  upon  the  earth,  nor  to  be  pining  because  it  is  not 
kindled.  Ah,  Jesus  !  these  are  Thy  worst  wounds.  I 
think  lightly  of  the  ruddy  scars  of  Thy  hands  and  feet, 
of  the  bruised  knee  and  the  galled  shoulder,  of  the 
thousand-wounded  head  and  the  wide-open  heart.  But 
these  wounds ! — the  wounds  of  coldness,  neglect,  un- 
praying  selfishness  ! — the  wounds  of  the  few  that  were 
once  fervid  and  now  are  tepid,  of  the  multitudes  that 
never  were  fervent,  and  so  cannot  even  claim  the  odious 
honours  of  tepidity  ! — the  wounds  wherewith  Thou 
wert  wounded  in  the  house  of  Thy  friends ! — these  are 
the  wounds  to  be  wiped  with  our  tears,  and  softened 
with  the  oil  of  our  afi'ectionate  compassion.  Blessed 
Lord  !  I  can  hardly  believe  Thou  art  what  I  know  Thou 
art,  when  I  see  Thy  people  Avound  Thee  thus  !  And  my 
own  wretched  heart !  It.  too,  lets  me  into  sad  secrets 
about  man's  capability  of  coldness,  and  his  infinity  of 
ingratitude.  Alas  !  the  concluding  chapters  of  the  four 
Gospels, — they  read  like  a  bitter  jest  upon  the  faithful ! 
And  then,  we  live  as  if  we  would  petulantly  say,  "Well, 
we  cannot  help  it.  If  Jesus  chose  to  do  and  to  be  all 
this,  it  is  his  own  affair :  we  only  wanted  absolution ; 
we  only  wanted  a  machine  to  be  saved  by — a  locomotive 
into  heaven — the  cheapest  and  roughest  that  would  do 
the  work,  and  land  us  at  the  terminus.     You  devout 


108  LOVE   WOUNDED   BY   SIN. 


people  in  reality  stand  in  the  way  of  religion.  It  may 
be  hard  for  us  to  define  enthusiasm ;  but  you  surely 
are  enthusiasts.  What  We  mean  is,  you  are  all  heart 
and  no  head.  Mere  heat  will  not  do  instead  of  talent. 
Earnestness  is  not  theology.  There  are  other  things  to 
be  done  in  life  besides  going  to  mass  and  confession 
How  can  we  have  confidence  in  people  who  let  them- 
selves be  run  away  with  by  religious  fervour?  All 
this  incarnation  of  a  God,  this  romance  of  a  Gospel, 
these  unnecessary  sufferings,  this  prodigal  bloodshed 
ding,  this  exuberance  of  humiliations,  this  service  of 
love,  this  condolence  of  amorous  sorrow;  to  say  the 
truth,  it  is  irksome  to  us  ;  we  are  not  at  home  in  it  at 
all ;  the  thing  might  have  been  done  otherwise ;  it  was 
a  matter  of  debtor  and  creditor ;  every  one  is  not  a 
poet ;  every  one  cannot  take  to  the  romantic.  Keally 
there  must  be  a  mistake  in  the  matter.  God  is  very 
good,  and  Ilis  love  is  very  well  in  its  way.  Of  course 
lie  loves  us,  and  of  course  we  love  Him.  But  really, 
by  a  little  practical  common  sense,  and  a  few  whole- 
some reasonable  precepts,  and  a  strictly  conscientious 
discharge  of  our  relative  duties,  might  we  not  put  this 
tremendous  mythology  of  Christian  love,  with  all  pos- 
sible respect,  a  little  on  one  side,  and  go  to  heaven  by 
a  plain,  beaten,  sober,  moderate  path,  more  accordant 
to  our  character  as  men,  and  to  our  dignity  as  British 
subjects?  If  *the  Anglo-Saxon  race  really  fell  in 
Adam,'  why  obviously  we  must  take  the  consequences. 
Still,  let  the  mistake  be  repaired  in  th{\t  quiet,  orderly 
way,  and  with  that  proper  exhibition  of  sound  sense 
which  are  so  dear  to  Englishmen." 
Well !   if  it  must  be  so,  I  can  only  think  of  those 


LO\E    WOUNDED    BY    SIN.  109 


bold  -words  of  St.  Mary  Jlagdalene  of  Pazzi :  "  0  Jesus ! 
Thou  hast  made  a  fool  of  Thyself  through  love." 

0  poor  desolate  glory  of  God !  Thou  art  a  foundling 
upon  the  earth  !  No  one  will  claim  thee,  or  acknow- 
ledge kindred  with  thee,  or  give  thee  a  home.  Cold  aa 
the  world  is,  and  pitiless  the  pelting  of  incessant  sin, 
thou  liest  crying  at  our  doors,  and  men  heed  thee  not. 
Poor  homeless  glory!  earth  was  meant  for  thee  once  as 
much  as  heaven,  but  there  have  been  robbers  abroad, 
and  it  is  no  safe  travelling  for  thee  along  our  roads 
now.  But  there  are  some  few  of  us  still  who  have 
pledged  ourselves  to  Heaven,  that  from  this  hour  we 
will  take  thee  to  our  own  homes,  as  John  took  Mary ; 
"  henceforth  our  substance  is  thy  substanc**,  and  all 
that  we  have  is  thine." 


CHAPTER  IV, 


^\\Uxtt$nx%  |nipn 


,ET  us  see  what  goes  to  the  saviDg 
of  a  soul,  and  -what  is  involved  in 
its  being  saved.  In  the  first  place, 
it  "was  absolutely  necessary  that 
God.  should  become  man,  in  order 
that  that  soul  should  be  saved,  ac- 
cording to  the  dispensation  of  God. 
It  was  absolutely  necessary  that 
Jesus  should  be  born,  teach,  act, 
pray,  merit,  satisfy,  suffer,  bleed,  die, 
for  the  saving  of  that  single  soul.  It 
was  necessary  that  there  should  be  a 
Catholic  church,  faith,  sacraments,  saints, 
the  Pope,  and  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass, 
for  that  one  soul.  It  was  necessary  that 
there  should  be  a  supernatural  substance  or 
quality,  a  marvelbus  participation  of  the 
Divine  Nature,  called  sanctifying  grace,  and 
that  on  this  should  be  accumulated  loving  acts  and 
impulses  of  the  Divine  Will,  in  the  shape  of  manifold 
actual  graces,  preventing,  accompanying,  following, 
and  efficacious,  else  that  soul  cannot  be  saved.  Martyrs 
must  die,  doctors  must  wriu^,  I'opes  and  councils  must 

110 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  113 


expose  and  condemn  heresy,  missionaries  travel,  priesta 
be  ordained,  for  the  safety  of  that  single  soul.  When 
all  these  preparations  are  completed,  and  by  an  act  of 
merciful  omnipotence  that  soul  is  created  out  of 
nothing,  then  there  must  be  a  guardian  angel  appointed 
over  it ;  all  through  its  life  Jesus  must  be  occupied 
about  it ;  Mary  must  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  it ; 
all  the  angels  and  saints  must  pray  and  interest  them 
selves  about  it.  To  every  good  thought,  pious  word, 
and  devout  action,  and,  of  course,  they  soon  come  to  be 
innumerable,  a  participation  of  the  Divine  nature, 
grace  must  concur.  Unseen  evil  spirits  have  to  be 
warded  off  from  it,  and  foiled  in  their  attempts  upon 
it.  Hourly  temptations  have  to  cause  more  or  less 
emotion  among  its  advocates  in  heaven.  Every  at- 
tribute of  God  vouchsafes  to  legislate  for  its  advantage, 
BO  that  it  plays  upon  them  all  like  one  who  fingers  the 
keys  of  a  musical  instrument.  The  Precious  Blood 
has  to  be  communicated  to  it  through  extraordinary 
sacraments,  which  are  full  of  mystery,  and  were  in- 
vented both  as  to  form  and  matter  by  our  Lord  Him- 
self. All  sorts  of  things,  water,  oil,  candles,  ashes, 
beads,  medals,  scapulars,  have  to  be  filled  with  a 
strange  undefinable  power  by  ecclesiastical  benedic- 
tions in  its  behalf.  The  Body,  Soul,  and  Divinity  of 
the  Incarnate  "Word  have  to  be  communicated  to  it 
over  and  over  again  till  it  becomes  quite  a  common 
occurrence,  though  each  time  it  is  in  reality  a  more 
stupendous  action  than  the  creation  of  the  world.  It 
can  speak  up  to  heaven,  and  be  heard  and  obeyed 
there.  It  can  spend  the  satisfiictions  of  Jesus  as  if  they 
were  its  own,  and  can  undo  bolts  and  bars  in  purga- 
tory, and  choose  by  its  own  determinate  will  whom  it 


112  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


will  liberate  and  whom  it  will  pass  over.  And  all  the 
time  it  is  so  near  to  God,  and  its  heart  is  a  place  so 
sacred  and  so  privileged,  that  none  but  God  Himself 
can  communicate  grace  to  it,  not  even  the  angels,  nor 
the  Mother  of  God  herself,  blessed  throughout  all  ages. 
All  this  goes  to  the  salvation  of  a  soul.  To  be  saved 
it  has  to  be  God's  child,  God's  brother,  and  to  partici- 
pate in  God's  nature.  Now  see  what  is  involved  in  its 
being  saved.  Look  at  that  soul  yonder  that  has  just 
been  judged  ;  Jesus  has  this  instant  spoken ;  the  sound 
of  His  sweet  words  has  hardly  died  away ;  they  that 
mourn  have  scarcely  yet  closed  the  eyes  of  the  deserted 
body.  Yet  the  judgment  has  come  and  gone ;  all  is 
over ;  it  was  swift  but  merciful ;  more  than  merciful ; 
'there  is  no  word  to  say  what  it  was.  It  must  be 
imagined.  One  day,  please  God !  we  shall  experience 
it.  That  soul  must  be  very  strong  to  bear  what  it  is 
feeling  now.  God  must  support  it,  or  it  will  fall  back 
into  nothingness.  Life  is  over.  How  short  it  has  all 
been.  Death  is  done  with.  How  easy  was  its  passing 
sharpness.  How  little  the  trials  look,  how  puny  the 
sorrows,  how  childish  the  afflictions  !  And  now  some- 
thing has  happened  to  it,  which  is  to  be  for  evermore. 
Jesus  has  said  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  it. 
What  is  that  something  ?  Eye  has  not  seen,  nor  ear 
heard.  It  sees  God.  There  is  stretched  before  it  an 
illimitable  eternity.  Darkness  has  melted  from  before 
it.  Weakness  has  fallen  off  from  it.  Time  has 
vanished,  that  cramped  it  so.  There  is  no  ignorance. 
It  sees  God.  Its  understanding  is  inundated  with 
unspeakable  delights  ;  it  is  strengthened  by  unima- 
ginable glory  ;  it  abounds  in  that  Vision  to  which 
earthly  science  is  an  illiterate  stupidity.     The  will  is 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  113 


flooded  with  love ;  excessive  happiness  thrills  through 
every  aflfection.  As  a  sponge  is  filled  with  the  sea,  so 
it  is  filled  with  light,  beauty,  bliss,  ravishment,  im- 
mortality, God.  These  are  foolish  words,  lighter  than 
feathers,  weaker  than  water.  They  are  not  a  shadow 
of  what  it  feels.  Eye  has  not  seen,  ear  has  not  heard, 
heart  has  not  conceived.  There  it  is  on  the  threshold 
of  it  all ;  the  same  soul  that  but  a  moment  ago  was 
gobbing  in  pain,  feeble  as  an  unmanly  child.  There 
can  be  no  mistake  about  it. 

But  not  only  so.  There  is  not  the  slightest  risk  of 
its  being  forfeited.  All  is  sure.  All  is  its  own,  its 
very  own,  inalienable,  and  for  ever.  Sin  can  never 
come  nigh  it.  Imperfection  cannot  breathe  upon  it. 
It  knows  no  change,  though  its  variety  is  infinite.  It 
knows  no  inequality,  though  its  joys  are  multitudinous 
and  its  delights  innumerable.  It  is  crowned  king,  and 
for  ever.  And  the  empire  of  all  this  magnificence,  how 
cheaply  has  it  been  purchased  !  Those  transient  toils 
and  cares  of  life,  which  grace  turned  into  contentments, 
and  love  to  real  pleasures!  And  now,  here  is  this 
come,  the  light  of  glory,  and  the  beauty  of  the  Ever- 
lasting Vision  !  It  would  appear  but  a  dream  ;  only 
that  the  marvellous  calm  of  the  soul  tells  of  the -power 
and  the  depth  of  its  new  life.  Its  ability  to  bear  its 
own  consciousness  is  the  gage  of  its  freshness  and  its 
immortality.  And  all  this  is  involved  in  the  saving  of 
a  soul  I  How  wonderful  is  the  world  if  we  remember 
how  many  of  its  inhabitants  die  every  moment  of  the 
day  and  night ;  and  there  is  probably  never  a  moment 
in  which  there  is  not  some  soul  in  this  predicament, 
just  judged,  its  sentence  favourable,  and  its  eyes 
opened  on  thr*  incommunicable  beauty  and  goodness 
H  10* 


114  INTERCESSORY   TRAYER. 


5f  God.  0  dull  and  weary,  weary  and  dull!  This  is 
all  we  can  say,  when  we  turn  our  thoughts  back  to 
our  own  petty  cares,  teasing  temptations,  Texatious 
self-love,  annoying  littleness,  ungenerous  shabbinesa 
with  God  !  lie  has  gone,  is  judged,  it  is  well  with 
him  !  Oh  how  well !  And  we  still  here.  Our  great 
risk  yet  to  be  run  !  0  dull  and  weary,  weary  and 
dull! 

Yet  a  fcAv  minutes  ago,  and  that  soul  was  not  secure. 
There  was  a  desperate  contest  going  on,  a  pitched  bat- 
tle betAveen  heaven  and  hell,  and  heaven  seemed  at  a 
disadvantage.  The  sufferer  was  patient  enough  to 
merit  any  thing  that  could  be  merited.  But  God  put 
the  last  gift,  the  ultimate  grace,  final  perseverance,  be- 
yond the  reach  of  merit ;  and  so  seemed  almost  to 
throw  the  victory  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  It  was 
a  terrific  moment.  All  was  at  stake.  All  that  had 
gone  to  the  saving  of  that  soul,  from  eternity  up  to  that 
hour,  was  on  the  point  of  being  lost  and  frustrated  for 
ever ;  it  is  lost,  it  is  frustrated,  and  for  ever,  almost 
every  minute,  perhaps  quite  every  minute,  all  the  world 
over.  All,  too,  that  was  to  be  involved  in  the  saving 
of  that  soul  just  then  ran  the  risk  of  never  being  at- 
tained. Can  risk,  even  in  idea,  go  beyond  this  risk? 
And  Jesus  stood  by,  watching  the  turnings  of  the  bat- 
tle, how  it  would  go.  The  beatings  of  His  Sacred  Heart 
might  have  been  heard  in  the  silence  of  the  moment. 
He  had  suspended  His  own  sweet  and  easy  law,  where- 
by, because  of  His  merits,  we  can  merit  also.  Although 
He  Himself  iiad  merited  for  us  the  gift  of  final  perse- 
verance, and  whosoever  receives  that  grace  receives  it 
for  the  sole  merits  of  our  Lord,  yet  it  seemed  as  if  He 
had  given  that  moment  up  to  the  sheer  sovereignty  of 


INTERCES£ORY    PRAYER.  115 


the  Divine  Majesty.  It  was  thrown,  so  it  appeared,  on 
the  great,  overpowering,  limitless  might  of  the  mercy 
of  the  Undivided  Trinity.  One  law  alone  is  left  unfet- 
tered. It  is  on  purpose.  The  law  of  prayer,  interces- 
sory prayer.  You  are  of  kith  and  kin  to  that  dying 
man,  or  you  are  his  enemy;  you  are  his  priest,  or  his 
nurse,  or  his  benefactor ;  you  are  his  neighbour,  or  you 
are  a  thousand  miles  away ;  you  know  him  well,  or 
3-0U  never  heard  of  his  existence,  or  dreamed  of  his 
agony.  It  matters  not.  The  victory  has  been  left  to 
you.  The  matter  is  in  your  hands.  Ills  soul  hangs  on 
your  prayers.  Jesus  has  decreed  that  you,  not  He, 
(if  I  may  say  so  untrue  a  thing,)  are  to  save  that  soul. 
You  are  to  put  the  crown  on  all  that  has  gone  to  his  sal- 
vation. You  are  to  put  the  crown  on  all  that  is  involved 
in  his  salvation.  You  may  never  know  it,  or  at  least  not 
till  you  are  judged  yourself.  Yet,  in  the  communion  of 
saints,  and  in  the  unity  of  Jesus,  you  are  to  be  the  saviour 
of  that  uncertain  soul,  the  victor  of  that  unsettled  strife ! 
But  what  is  prayer  ?  The  mystery  of  prayer  ?  We 
have  need  to  ask  the  question  if  it  involves  so  great  a 
responsibility,  and  can  do  so  great  a  work,  and  if  it  be 
in  truth  a  precept  that  we  must  pray  for  others  as  well 
as  for  ourselves.  There  are  many  things  which  go  to 
make  up  a  true  account  of  prayer.  First,  we  must  con- 
sider who  we  are  who  pray.  None  could  have  a  more 
ignoble  origin.  We  were  created  out  of  nothing,  and 
we  came  into  the  world  with  the  guilt  and  shame  of  sin 
already  on  our  souls,  and  the  burden  of  a  hideous  pe- 
nalty which  eternal  lamentation  never  could  remit. 
To  this  our  original  disgrace  we  have  added  all  manner 
of  guilt  and  shame,  of  treason  and  rebellion,  of  irritar 
bility  and  disrespect,  of  our  own.     There  arc  no  words 


116  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


which  would  exaggerate  our  malice,  no  description 
which  would  convey  a  fair  idea  of  our  helpless  igno- 
rance. Every  thing  about  us  was  little  to  begin  with, 
and  we  have  made  it  immeasurably  less.  It  is  hard  to 
conceive  ourselves  worse  than  we  are ;  so  much  so  that 
it  is  necessary  to  make  it  a  duty  to  be  patient  and  for- 
bearing with  ourselves  quite  as  much  as  with  others. 
Then,  next  we  must  consider  who  it  is  to  whom  we 
pray.  The  infinitely  blessed  Majesty  of  God,  than 
which  nothing  can  be  conceived  more  good,  more  holy, 
more  pure,  more  august,  more  adorable,  more  compas- 
sionate, more  incomprehensible,  or  more  unutterable. 
The  very  thought  of  God  takes  away  our  breath.  He 
is  Three  living  Persons.  We  live,  and  move,  and 
])reathe  in  Ilim.  lie  can  do  what  He  wills  with  us. 
He  is  no  further  bound  to  us  than  He  has  graciously 
and  piteously  chosen  to  bind  Himself.  He  knows  every 
thing  without  our  telling  Him  or  asking  Him.  Yet  it 
is  to  Him  we  pray.  Next,  let  us  think  where  it  is  we 
pray.  Whether  it  be  a  consecrated  place  or  not.  It  is 
in  God  Himself.  We  are  in  the  midst  of  Him,  as  fishes 
are  in  the  sea.  His  immensity  is  our  temple.  His 
ear  lies  close  upon  our  lips.  It  touches  them.  We  do 
not  feel  it ;  if  we  did  we  should  die.  It  is  always  lis- 
tening. Thoughts  speak  to  it  as  loudly  as  words  ;  suf- 
ferings even  louder  than  words.  His  ear  is  never 
taken  away.  We  sigh  into  it  even  while  we  sleep  and 
dream. 

Next,  let  us  ask,  whence  comes  the  value  of  our 
prayers  ?  They  are  fleeting  words  ;  fugitive  petitions. 
There  is  nought  in  us  to  give  ground  for  a  hearing,  ex- 
cept Mie  very  excess  of  our  unworthiness,  and,  there- 
for-"     he  extremity  of  our  need.     Else,  why  should  our 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  117 


prayers  be  in  the  Creator's  ear  more  than  the  roaring 
of  a  lion,  or  the  querulous  complaining  of  the  plover, 
or  the  cry  of  the  suffering  beast  run  down  by  the  hunt- 
ers ?  Their  value  comes  principally  from  this — that 
God  Himself  has  vouchsafed  to  become  a  man,  has  lain 
out  upon  the  inclement  mountains,  and  spent  the  night 
in  prayer.  He  mixes  us  up  with  Himself;  makes  our 
cause  His,  His  interests  ours,  and  vre  become  one  with 
Him.  So  by  a  mysterious  communion  the  work  of  His 
prayers  runs  into  our  prayers,  the  wealth  of  His  en- 
riches the  poverty  of  ours,  the  infinity  of  His  touches, 
raises,  and  magnifies  the  wretchedness  of  ours.  So  that 
when  we  pray,  it  is  not  we  who  pray,  but  He  who 
prays.  We  speak  into  our  Heavenly  Father's  ear,  and 
it  is  not  our  voice,  but  the  voice  of  Jesus,  like  His 
Mother's  voice,  that  God  vouchsafes  to  hear.  Or  rather, 
the  Eternal  vouchsafes  to  be  like  Isaac  in  his  blind,  old 
age.  His  younger  son  kneels  before  Him  for  His 
blessing,  with  license  to  play  his  elder  brother's  part. 
•'  The  voice  indeed  is  the  voice  of  Jacob,"  and  it  is  not 
he  whom  I  will  bless,  "  but  the  hands  are  the  hands  of 
Esau,"  roughened  with  the  toil  of  the  world's  redemp- 
tion. And  he  says  with  Isaac  :  "  Come  near  Me,  and 
give  Me  a  kiss.  My  son."  And  immediately,  as  He 
smells  the  fragrant  smell  of  His  garments,  for  it  is  of  a 
truth  the  stole  of  Christ,  "blessing  him,  he  says:  Be- 
hold the  smell  of  My  son  is  as  the  smell  of  a  plentiful 
field  ;"  and  so  He  filleth  him  with  blessings.  Neithei 
is  this  an  end  of  the  inventions  of  his  paternal  love. 
For,  we  must  next  inquire  with  whom  it  is  we 
pray.  Never  alone ;  cf  this  we  are  sure,  whenever  we 
rightly  pray.  There  is  One  dwelling  in  us  who  is  co- 
equal, co-eternal  God,  proceeding  from  the  Father  and 


118  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


Ihe  Son.  lie  forms  the  word  in  our  hearts,  and  then 
nuts  music  in  our  cry,  when  we  exclaim,  "  Abba,  Far 
ther!"  He  is  our  "access  to  the  Father."  He 
**  strengthens  us  with  might  unto  the  inward  man." 
He  makes  us  "speak  to  ourselves  in  psalms,  and 
hymns,  and  spiritual  canticles,  singing  and  making 
melody  in  our  hearts  to  the  Lord,  giving  thanks  al- 
ways for  all  things,  in  the  Name  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  to  God  and  the  Father ;"  He  is  the  Spirit  in 
whom  "  we  pray  at  all  times,  by  all  prayer  and  sup- 
plication, and  watch  in  the  same,  with  all  instance  and 
supplication  for  all  the  Saints."  He  is  the  Spirit 
"  who  helpeth  our  infirmities ;  for  we  know  not  what 
we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought ;  but  the  Spirit  Him- 
self asketh  for  us  with  unspeakable  groanings :  and  He 
that  searcheth  the  hearts  knoweth  what  the  Spirit  de- 
sireth."  Oh  then  does  not  the  mystery  of  prayer 
deepen  and  deepen  upon  us  ? 

Next,  look  at  the  incredible  ease  of  prayer.  Every 
time,  place,  posture,  is  fitting;  for  there  is  no  time, 
place,  or  posture,  in  and  by  which  we  cannot  reverent- 
ly confess  the  Presence  of  God.  Talent  is  not  needed. 
Eloquence  is  out  of  place.  Dignity  is  no  recommenda- 
tion. Our  want  is  our  eloquence,  our  misery  our 
recommendation.  Thought  is  quick  as  lightning,  and 
quick  as  lightning  can  it  multiply  effectual  prayer. 
Actions  can  pray ;  sufferings  can  pray.  There  need 
no  ceremonies ;  there  are  no  rubrics  to  keep.  The 
whole  function  is  expressed  in  a  word ;  it  is  simply 
this, — the  child  at  his  father's  knee,  his  words  stum- 
bling over  each  other  from  very  earnestness,  and  his 
wistful  fiice  pleading  better  than  his  hardly  intelligible 
prayer. 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  119 


Then  consider  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  We  have  only 
to  pray  for  lawful  things,  to  pray  for  them  often  and 
perseveringly,  and  to  believe  we  shall  receive  them, 
and  receive  them  too,  not  according  to  the  poverty  of 
our  foolish  intentions,  but  according  to  the  riches,  and 
wisdom,  and  munificence  of  God  ;  and  it  is  an  infalli- 
ble truth  that  we  shall  receive  them.  God  is'at  our 
disposal.  He  allows  us  this  almost  unbounded  influ- 
ence over  Him,  not  once  or  twice,  not  merely  on  feasts 
or  great  occasions,  but  all  our  lives  long.  Are  there 
any  of  the  mysteries  of  grace  sweeter  than  this  ?  We 
read  of  one  of  the  saints,  that  so  availing  were  her 
prayers  supposed  to  be,  people  came  from  all  quarters 
to  beg  her  to  recommend  their  necessities  to  God.  She, 
meanwhile,  heard  them  and  forgot  them.  She  was 
immersed  in  contemplation,  saw  only  the  Divine  Attri- 
butes, and  had  no  thought  but  for  the  Lover  of  her 
soul.  She  was  amazed,  then,  when  crowds  came  con- 
tinually to  thank  her  for  the  answers  that  had  come  to 
her  prayers  on  their  behalf,  and  in  an  ecstasy  she 
spoke  her  wonder  in  the  ear  of  Jesus.  "Daughter," 
replied  our  dearest  Lord,  "your  will  is  always  and 
only  to  do  My  will,  and  I  will  never  let  you  vanquish 
Me  in  love  ;  and,  therefore.  My  will  is  to  do  your  will, 
even  when  you  have  forgotten  that  you  ever  willed  it." 
See  Avhat  manner  of  Lord  He  is  with  whom  we  have 
to  do! 

Then,  last  of  all,  it  is  not  for  ourselves  alone  He  lets 
us  pray,  but  for  others  also.  Nay,  He  expressly  com- 
mands us  to  make  intercessory  prayer.  Through  His 
apostle  He  speaks  with  that  positive  and  unusual  form, 
**  I  desire  first  of  all  that  supplications,  prayers,  inter* 


UFI7BESIT7, 


120  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


cessions,  and  thanksgivings,  bo  made  by  men."*  And 
in  the  passage  quoted  above  from  the  eighth  chapter 
of  tlie  epistle  to  the  Romans,  when  the  apostle  says, 
*'  He  that  searcheth  the  hearts  knoweth  what  the  Spi- 
rit desireth;"  he  adds,  "because  He  asketh  for  the 
Saints  according  to  God."  Thus  the  inestimable  pri- 
vilege, the  mysterious  gift  of  prayer,  is  given  to  us  not 
merely  for  our  own  necessities,  but  that  we  may  use  it 
for  the  temporal  and  spiritual  good  of  others.  How 
strict  an  account  shall  we  have  to  render  for  so  great 
a  favour,  and  how  careful  we  should  be  that  this 
power  should  not  be  intrusted  to  us  in  vain  !  What- 
ever other  talents  God  may  not  have  given  to  us,  this 
one,  without  doubt,  He  has  given  to  us.  There  is  no 
distinction  of  persons.  Young  and  old,  rich  and  poor, 
learned  and  simple,  priest  and  lay,  religious  and  secu- 
lar, we  are  all  of  us  bound  to  the  practice  of  interces- 
sory prayer.  Wo  unto  us  if  we  hide  our  talent,  or 
venture  to  return  it  to  our  Judge  at  the  last  unfruit- 
ful !  Let  each  one  examine  himself,  and  see  what 
time  he  has  given  hitherto  to  this  devotion,  and 
whether  the  past  is  in  this  respect  altogether  what  In 
would  have  it  be.  To  pray  always  is  a  hard  precept 
and  one  we  can  only  come  to  by  time  and  habit,  at 
well  as  by  gift  and  grace.  But  the  thing  is  to  find 
that  the  older  we  grow  the  more  we  pray,  and  the  more 
we  pray  the  more  our  prayer  takes  the  line  of  inter' 
cession  for  the  souls  of  others. 

Perhaps,  never  while  we  are  on  earth  shall  we 
realize  the  heavenly  might  of  prayer,  nor  the  exceed- 
ing riches  of  that  treasure,  which  now,  alas  !  we  make 

*  1  Tim.  ii.  1. 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  121 


SO  light  of,  seeing  not  how  thereby  God's  glory  is  so 
much  within  our  power.  Oh,  what  might  we  not  do 
by  prayer  I  What  might  we  not  do  in  every  remotest 
corner  of  the  earth,  in  the  cells  of  purgatory,  and  in 
the  open  courts  of  heaven !  Yet  the  times  are  against 
prayer ;  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  against  it ;  the  habits 
of  our  countrymen  are  against  it.  Oh,  for  faith  in 
prayer !  for  only  faith  in  prayer !  for  faith  in  simple 
prayer !  and  the  interests  of  Jesus  shall  spread  like  a 
beneficent  conquest  all  over  the  world,  and  the  glory 
of  God  shall  beautifully  cover  the  earth  as  the  abound- 
ing waters  cover  the  bed  of  the  sea,  and  the  choirs  of 
redeemed  souls  shall  multiply  and  multiply,  till  the 
Good  Shepherd  should  be,  were  it  any  other  than  He, 
overladen  with  the  sheaves  of  His  prolific  Passion! 
Heaven  opens  sometimes,  and  gives  us  a  glimpse  of 
this  potency  of  prayer.  See  how  it  opened  on  St.  Ger- 
trude.* She  Avas  divinely  instructed  that  as  often  as 
the  angelic  salutation  is  devoutly  recited  by  the  faith- 
ful on  earth,  three  efficacious  streamlets  proceed  from 
the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  most  sweetly 
penetrating  the  Blessed  Virgin's  heart.  Then  from 
her  heart  again  with  efficacious  impetuosity,  they  seel? 
their  fountains,  and  break  at  the  foot  of  God's  throne 
as  a  sunny  wave  breaks  upon  a  rock,  leaving  her  mos* 
powerful  after  the  Father,  most  wise  after  the  Son,  and 
most  benignant  after  the  Holy  Spirit.  These  streams, 
while  the  Ave  Maria  is  being  said,  flow  around  the 
Blessed  Virgin  superabundantly,  and  with  potent  im- 
petus, and  on  the  other  hand  flow  back  again  upon  her 
most  holy  heart.     So  with  marvellous  delectation,  I  am 

*  Rev.  1.  iv.  e.  12. 
H 


122  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


using  St.  Gertrude's  words,  they  seek  their  fountain 
first,  and  then  redounding  back,  bright  drops  of  joy, 
and  bliss,  and  eternal  salvation,  are  sprinkled  over  aU 
the  persons  of  the  saints  and  angels,  nay,  more,  over 
those  who  on  earth  are  then  commemorating  that  same 
salutation,  whereby  is  renewed  in  every  one  all  the 
good  which  he  has  ever  up  to  this  time  received  through 
the  most  salutary  Incarnation.  Yet,  what  more  easy 
than  to  say  a  devout  Hail  Mary?  And  if  this  be  true 
of  the  Ave,  what  also  of  the  Pater,  and  the  Credo,  and 
the  Missal  prayers,  and  ejaculations  from  the  Gos- 
pel ?  Do  we  know  what  we  are  doing,  and  where  we 
are  living,  and  what  is  all  around  us,  and  how  far  our 
influence  goes,  and  where  our  responsibilities  end? 
And  have  we  measured  our  privileges,  and  taken  the 
height  of  our  dignity,  and  fathomed  the  depths  of 
grace  ?  We  are  beset  by  our  own  greatness.  We  work 
miracles,  and  know  it  not.  We  move  the  heavens,  yet 
we  ourselves  are  in  thoughtless  rest  on  earth.  The 
mystery  is  too  much  for  us  ;  the  problem  too  hard  ;  the 
supernatural  quite  oppressive.  But  the  comfort  is,  we 
shall  do  all  things  well,  use  all  powers,  satisfy  all  du- 
ties, be  equal  to  all  dignities,  exhaust  all  blessings,  if 
only  we  will  serve  Jesus  with  pure  intention  and  out 
of  love.  Once  go  forth  upon  the  earth,  and  live,  and 
move,  and  breathe,  speak,  act,  and  think,  joy  and  sor- 
row, toil  and  rest,  welcome  and  suffer,  all  for  Jesus; 
and  we  need  have  no  other  thought,  no  other  rule. 
No  atom  of  what  we  are,  or  of  what  we  have  received, 
or  of  what  we  can  effect,  will  then  be  lost ;  all  things 
conscious  will  be  for  Jesus ;  all  things  unconscious  for 
Jesus  too  ;  all  things  possible  for  Jesus ;  and  if  there 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  1^3 


were  aught  impossible  for  one  in  Christ,  the  very  im- 
possible would  be  all  for  Jesus  too  ! 

But  let  us  apply  our  three  instincts  of  the  devout 
life  to  the  practice  of  intercessory  prayer.  If  we  lovo 
our  Heavenly  Father,  there  is  a  gentle  constraint  upon 
us  to  hunger  for  His  glory :  and  souls  are  His  honour, 
and  sin  His  dishonour.  Now  we  may  not  be  able  to 
preach,  or  to  write  books,  or  to  traverse  distant  lands 
as  missioners,  or  to  give  money  to  send  others  there. 
It  may  be  little  indeed  that  of  ourselves  and  by  our 
actions  we  can  do  for  God's  glory  or  the  conversion  of 
souls.  But  intercession  reaches  everywhere.  Neither 
time  nor  place  bound  it.  Ignorance  cannot  keep  it 
out,  nor  superstition  silence  it,  nor  sin  refuse  to  stay 
within  its  influence.  Wherever  grace  can  come,  prayer 
can  reach,  and  that  is  wheresoever  God's  omnipotence 
extends,  save  and  except  that  one  place  whence  hope 
has  been  commanded  to  withdraw.  Not  that  God  is 
not  glorified  there  also ;  but  it  is  a  glory  we  worship 
with  silence,  fear,  and  a  trembling  hush  of  heart.  It 
is  not  that  glory  of  His  which  we  are  His  fellow- 
workers  in  promoting.  We  hear  of  some  land  where 
God's  glory  is  endangered.  There  is  some  country, 
perhaps,  where  the  civil  power  is  at  variance  with  the 
Holy  See,  than  which  nothing  is  more  adverse  to  God's 
glory,  more  injurious  to  the  interests  of  Jesus,  or  more 
fatal  to  the  cause  of  souls.  Or,  again,  we  read  with 
burning  eyes  and  heart  of  the  spiritual  destitution  of 
the  slaves  or  the  aborigines  in  certain  countries.  Or 
of  the  persecutions  and  tiring  vexations  of  the  Catholic 
clergy  under  heretical  dominion,  or  of  the  impenetra- 
ble provinces  of  China  and  Japan,  or  of  Catholic  cities 
of  scandalous  profligacy,  or  of  the  wily  plots  of  an  anti- 


124  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


ecclesiastical  diplomacy,  or  of  the  depression  of  the 
religious  orders,  or  of  idle,  extravagant  bishops,  or  of 
jealousy  of  missions  and  retreats,  or  of  disedifying 
controversies  and  foolish  parties  and  silly  questions. 
There  is  no  saying  to  what  an  extent  God's  glory  is 
compromised  by  any  one  of  these  things.  "We  may  be 
the  weakest  and  most  obscure  among  the  Church's 
children ;  yet  we  can  reach  all  this  by  intercession, 
and  reach  it  too  with  efficacy  and  power.  We  may 
work  for  it  without  interruption ;  our  ordinary  actions 
may  go  to  it ;  we  may  do  more  than  all  the  ambassa- 
dors and  legates  that  ever  were,  and  yet  not  for  an 
hour  be  distracted  from  our  profession  or  our  trade. 
We  shall  never  know,  till  it  meets  us  at  the  judgment, 
a  goodly  show,  a  beautiful  vision,  how  much  glory  we 
have  thus  gained  for  God,  without  cost,  without  toil, 
almost  without  advertence,  yet  with  such  infinite  and 
eternal  recompense. 

In  like  manner  also  shall  we  by  intercession  advance 
the  interests  of  Jesus.  There  is  something  very  touch- 
ing to  our  afi'ections  to  see  how  our  dear  Lord  has 
vouchsafed,  if  I  may  say  it,  to  leave  His  work  un- 
finished in  order  that  our  love  of  him  may  have  the  joy 
of  finishing  it.  St.  Paul  might  well  say*  that  he  re- 
joiced in  his  sufferings  for  the  Colossians,  because 
thus  he  "  filled  up  those  things  that  are  wanting  of  the 
Bufferings  of  Christ,  in  his  flesh  for  the  Lord's  Body, 
which  is  His  Church."  It  is  a  great  artifice  of  our 
Saviour's  love  that  He  has  chosen  to  be  so  dependenl 
upon  us  for  the  harvest  of  His  Cross  and  Passion ;  and 
we  must  have  cold  hearts  indeed  if  it  does  not  move 

*  C0I0S8.  i.  24. 


INTERCESSORY    PRAYER.  125 


US.  Take  any  one  temptation  from  which  you  suffei 
yourself.  IIow  wearisomely  it  dogs  you,  how  misera^ 
bly  it  entraps  you  ;  how  it  is  always  wakeful,  always 
fixing  itself  on  every  good  work,  devotion,  penance, 
prayer !  IIow  tired  you  get  of  resisting,  how  often 
you  unhappily  consent,  how  still  more  often  you  are 
teased  and  disquieted  because  you  cannot  make  out 
whether  you  have  consented  or  not !  Yet  every  mo- 
ment of  resistance  is  a  supernatural  act,  a  victory  of 
grace,  an  interest  of  Jesus.  Nay,  so  also  is  every 
sigh  of  sorrow  over  a  ftill,  every  ejaculation  sent  up, 
arrow-like,  to  heaven,  every  naming  of  Jesus  or  Mary 
on  the  confines  and  in  the  risk  of  sin.  Now,  how 
many  thousands  are  there  all  the  world  over  who  are 
wearily  fighting  with  the  same  temptation,  and  possi- 
bly under  more  disadvantageous  circumstances  than 
yourself?  See  then  how  many  interests  of  Jesus  you 
can  reach  by  intercession  in  this  single  respect :  and  I 
am  purposely  selecting  a  very  trifling  matter,  trifling, 
that  is,  in  comparison  of  other  things  where  our 
Blessed  Lord  is  yet  more  concerned.  Do  at  least  as 
much  as  this ;  intercede  for  those  who  are  being 
tempted  with  the  same  temptation  as  yourself.  Inter- 
cession can  shut  up  casinos,  take  away  licenses  of 
taverns,  discountenance  races,  make  it  rain  in  Easter 
or  in  AVhitsun-week,  draw  betting-offices  down  to  bank- 
ruptcy, and  ruin  unspeakable  haunts  of  sin.  If  we 
can  do  such  an  immense  work  for  Jesus,  with  scarcely 
any  trouble  to  ourselves,  can  we  think  we  love  Him 
if  we  are  not  doing  it  ?  The  flesh  may  tremble  at  the 
knots  of  the  scourge,  and  the  temper  chafe  at  the 
prickling  of  the  hair-shirt,  and  the  tired  and  impri- 
soned limbs  rebel  even  against  our  sleeping  a  night  in 
11* 


l26  intercessory  prayer. 


our  clothes  ;  all  this  is  intelligible  ;  there  may  be  lov« 
of  Jesus  with  it  all ;  it  is  only  the  old  story  of  Peter's 
drowsiness:  the  spirit  indeed  is  willing,  but  the  flesh  is 
weak.  But  how  we  can  love  Jesus,  and  not  practise 
intercession,  is  unintelligible.  The  wonder  is  how, 
prayer  being  what  it  is,  those  who  really  believe,  can 
ever  leave  off  praying,  can  ever  do  any  thing  else  but 
pray.  This  is  the  real  wonder,  if  we  only  come  to 
think  of  it.  This  is  a  greater  mystery  than  prayer 
itself. 

Then,  again,  if  we  have  the  saving  of  souls  at  heart, 
how  can  we  be  lukewarm  in  intercession  ?  Here  too 
so  much  can  be  done,  done  infallibly,  and  all  with  so 
much  ease.  IIow  few  preachers  are  holy  men,  and 
yet  without  unction  what  will  their  sermons  be  worth? 
And  if  the  world  is,  as  St.  Paul  says,  to  be  brought 
into  subjection  to  Christ  by  the  foolishness  of  preach- 
ing, what  is  to  be  done,  if  by  intercession  we  do  not 
impetrate  either  earnestness  for  the  preacher,  or  an 
unction  with  his  words  for  the  hearer's  sake?  Elo- 
quence, a  plague  upon  the  word  when  we  are  talking 
of  Jesus  and  of  souls  !  has  no  gift  or  benediction.  Its 
harvest  is  but  the  preacher's  praise  and  the  wasted 
time  of  the  silly,  gaping  audience.  God's  blessing  is 
the  thing.  Do  you  remember  the  story  of  that  reli- 
gious, a  Jesuit  I  think,  who  was  a  famous  preacher, 
and  whose  sermons  converted  men  by  scores  ?  And  it 
was  revealed  to  him  that  not  one  of  the  conversions 
was  owing  to  his  talents  or  eloquence,  but  all  to  the 
prayers  of  an  illiterate  lay-brother  who  sat  on  the 
pulpit  steps  saying  Hail  Maries  all  the  time  for  the 
success  of  the  sermon.  There  is  another  story,  a  very 
strange  one,  I  will  not  vouch  for  its  being  true,  but  I 


INTERCESSORY  PRAYER.  J2| 


well  quote  it  for  the  sake  of  the  wise  teaching  it  con- 
tains. A  certain  religious,  a  very  popular  preacher, 
was  expected  one  daj  in  a  convent  of  his  order,  where 
he  was  a  stranger.  In  the  afternoon  he  arrived,  or 
rather  an  evil  spirit  who  personated  him  arrived,  to 
see  what  mischief  he  could  do.  It  so  happened  that 
there  was  to  be  a  sermon  on  hell  preached  that  day  by 
one  of  the  monks  ;  but  he  was  ill,  and  unable  to  preach. 
So  they  asked  this  devil  to  preach  on  hell,  which  he 
did ;  and  as  may  be  supposed  from  his  experience,  a 
most  wonderful  sermon  it  was.  However,  on  the  ar- 
rival of  the  real  preacher,  the  evil  one  was  discovered, 
and  was  obliged  by  the  sign  of  the  cross  to  disclose 
himself  and  his  malicious  designs.  Among  other 
things  he  was  asked,  how  it  was  not  against  his  inte- 
rests to  preach  such  a  frightening  sermon  about  hell,  as 
it  would  keep  people  from  sin.  *'  Not  at  all !"  he  re- 
plied ;  •'  there  was  no  unction  with  it,  so  it  could  do 
no  harm."  Here  again  preaching  is  but  one  way  by 
which  intercession  can  reach  souls.  I  merely  give  it 
as  a  sample.  In  many  a  convent,  among  porters  and 
lay-brothers,  there  may  turn  out,  when  Jesus  makes 
all  things  straight  at  the  last,  to  have  been  many  a 
Francis  Xavier,  many  a  Father  Claver,  many  a  St. 
Charles  for  reforming  the  clergy,  a  St.  Thomas  for 
writing  books,  and  a  St.  Vincent  of  Paul  for  working 
the  interests  of  Jesus  in  the  towns  and  amid  the 
country  poor. 

One  of  the  most  divine  and  striking  characteristics 
of  the  Catholic  religion  is  the  communion  of  saints, 
the  way  in  which  every  thing  belongs  to  everybody, 
and  nobody  has  any  spiritual  property  of  his  own. 
The  merits  and  satisfactions  of  our  dear  Lord,  the 


128  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


joys  and  woes  of  Mary,  the  patience  of  the  martyrs, 
the  perseverance  of  confessors,  and  the  purity  of 
virgins,  they  all  belong  to  all  of  us.  Just  as  the  blood 
circulates  from  and  to  the  heart  all  over  the  bod}^  so 
in  the  Church  there  is  no  division  or  separation. 
Heaven,  purgatory,  and  earth,  it  is  all  one  body.  We 
interchange  our  merits,  we  circulate  our  prayers,  we 
pass  on  our  joys,  we  infect  with  our  troubles,  we  use 
each  other's  satisfactions  as  they  come  to  hand.  We 
have  all  sorts  of  relations  with  heaven,  and  we  know 
exactly  how  to  manage  them.  As  to  purgatory,  we 
have  a  regular  science,  and  endless  practical  methods 
for  it,  and  we  are  quite  at  home  in  them.  And  on  earth 
kith  and  kin,  blood  and  country,  Jew,  Greek,  Scythian, 
bond  and  free,  it  is  all  one.  This  is  what  strikes  here- 
tics as  so  very  portentous  about  us ;  there  is  no  other 
word  than  portentous  for  it.  AVe  talk  of  the  other 
world,  as  if  it  was  a  city  we  were  familiar  with  from 
long  residence ;  just  as  we  might  talk  of  Paris,  Brus- 
sels, or  Berlin.  We  are  not  stopped  by  death.  Sight 
is  nothing  to  us ;  we  go  beyond  it  as  calmly  as  possible. 
We  are  not  separated  from  our  dead.  We  know  the 
saints  a  great  deal  better  than  if  we  had  lived  with 
them  upon  earth.  We  talk  to  the  angels  in  their  dif- 
ferent choirs,  as  if  they  were,  as  they  are,  our  brothers 
in  Christ.  We  use  beads,  medals,  crucifixes,  holy 
water,  indulgences,  sacraments,  sacrifices,  for  all  this, 
as  naturally  as  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  or  axe  and  saw,  or 
spade  and  rake,  for  our  earthly  work.  AVe  have  no 
Bort  of  distrust  about  the  matter.  We  are  all  one 
household,  and  there  is  an  end  of  it.  The  blessed  Lord 
God  is  our  Father ;  His  dear  Majesty  is  our  affair ;  our 
Elder  Brother  created  us,  and  has  our  own  nature; 


INTERCESSORY  PRAYER.  129 


Mary  Is  our  mother;  the  angels  and  the  saints  are  all 
the  kindest  and  most  familiar  of  brothers ;  so  we  gc 
up  and  down  stairs,  in  and  out,  and  to  each  other's 
rooms,  just  as  it  may  be ;  there  is  no  constraint  about 
it  at  all ;  the  air  of  the  place  is  simply  an  intense  filial 
love  of  the  Father  whom  we  all  adore ;  so  that  our 
reverence  is  a  children's  reverence,  and  our  fear  a 
children's  fear.  How  can  they  understand  this,  who 
live  outside  the  household  ?  Must  it  not  necessarily 
seem  to  them  a  system  of  human  mysteries,  an  un- 
scriptural  fabrication?  They  are  "strangers  and 
foreigners  ;"  how  can  they  divine  the  ways,  the  feel- 
ings, the  sympathies  of  the  *'  fellow-citizens  of  the 
saints  and  the  domestics  of  God  ?"  They  can  read  the 
words,  but  they  can  know  nothing  of  the  heat  and 
life,  the  strength  and  the  perception,  the  health  and 
love  which  are  in  them ;  so  that  a  vail  is  over  their 
hearts,  truly  their  hearts  rather  than  their  understand- 
ings, when  Paul  is  read ;  for  they  who  would  understand 
the  edifying  of  the  body  of  Christ,  must  first  *'  all  meet 
into  the  unity  of  faith,"  and  so  needful  is  this  right 
faith,  that  it  is  the  "  truth"  that  we  "must  do  in  charity 
in  order  that  we  may  in  all  things  grow  up  in  Him 
who  is  the  head,  even  Christ ;  from  whom  the  whole 
body,  being  compactly  and  fitly  joined  together,  by 
what  every  joint  supplieth,  according  to  the  operation 
of  the  measure  of  every  part,  maketh  increase  of  the 
body,  unto  the  edifying  of  itself  in  charity."*  Thus 
it  is  that  intercessory  prayer,  practised  as  a  system, 
persevered  in  and  resorted  to  by  a  kind  of  instinct, 
has  always  been  almost  a  note  of  the  true  Church,  and 

*  Ephes.  IF. 


130  INTERCESSORY   TRAYER. 


is  even  charged  upon  her  by  her  opponents  as  part 
and  parcel  of  pharisaical  proselytism.  Notre  Dame 
des  Victoires  at  Paris  is  at  least  a  phenomenon  which 
the  history  of  heresy  and  schism  has  not  up  to  this 
time  exhibited.  They  who  do  not  possess  Christ  cannot 
master  the  idea  of  the  vicarious  function  of  His  Church. 
Where  there  is  no  Sacrifice,  there  will  hardly  be  much 
intercession.  This  is  another  motive  for  our  diligent 
and  aflPectionate  exercise  of  this  immeasurable  privi- 
lege of  love. 

Orlandini  says  of  Father  Peter  Faber,  that  he  era- 
braced  in  the  bosom  of  his  charity  the  whole  human 
race,  without  any  exception,  and  had  his  hands  full  of 
business  for  everybody  with  God.  The  more  lost  and 
profligate  a  man  was,  the  more  his  pity  kindled  toward 
him.  And  that  he  might  put  greater  vehemence  into 
his  prayers,  he  excited  and  elevated  them  with  the 
deepest  reflections.  When  he  prayed  for  people,  he 
put  them  before  himself,  as  redeemed  with  the  Pre- 
cious Blood  of  Christ,  as  Christ's  heirs,  as  Christ's 
kingdom,  so  that  he  stirred  up  his  own  affectionate 
zeal  by  thus  realizing  their  dignity  and  price,  while  at 
the  same  time  he  offered  to  God  the  merits  of  Christ 
and  Ilis  Saints  the  more  nobly  and  feelingly ;  until  at 
length  by  this  simple  practice  he  accustomed  himself 
to  entertain  quite  a  magnificent  opinion  (opinionem 
magnificam)  of  everybody.  St.  Catherine  of  Siena 
tells  us  that  God  said  to  her,  "  You  ought  with  the 
utmost  anxiety  to  pour  forth  prayers  for  all  rational 
creatures,  and  for  the  mystical  Body  of  Holy  Mother 
Church,  and  for  those  whom  I  have  given  over  to  you 
to  love  with  a  singular  affection."  St.  Gertrude  also 
was  told,  "Whosoever  says  at  least  one  Pater  and  Ave, 


INTERCESSORY  PRAYER.  131 


.IT  any  collect  or  phalm,  on  behalf,  and  in  the  name  of, 
the  universal  Church,  the  Son  of  God  presently  accepts 
it. with  the  deepest  gratitude  as  the  fruit  of  His  most 
perfect  Humanity  and  giving  thanks  to  God  the 
Father  for  it.  He  Messes  it,  and  multiplied  by  that 
benediction  He  distributes  it  to  the  Universal  Church, 
for  her  profit  to  eternal  salvation." 

But  let  us  novr  see  for  whom  especially  these  inter- 
cessions should  be  offered.  Spiritual  writers  give  us 
different  recommendations :  I  shall  follow  here,  as  so 
often  before,  the  Jesuit  Lancisius.* 

1.  For  those  who  are  in  mortal  sin,  or  out  of  the 
true  Church.  Thus  the  Eternal  Father  said  to  St. 
Catherine  of  Siena,  "  I  affectionately  entreat  you  to 
pray  assiduously  for  the  salvation  of  sinners,  for  whom 
I  ask  of  you  wrestlings  and  tearful  prayers,  that  I  may 
satisfy  My  longing  to  show  them  grace  and  mercy." 
When  she  heard  these  words  she  was  greatly  inflamed 
with  Divine  Love,  and  being  as  it  were  intoxicated 
and  unable  to  contain  herself,  she  cried  out,  "  0  Divine 
Mercy  and  Eternal  Goodness  !  it  is  no  wonder  to  me 
that  Thou  sayest  to  converted  sinners  returning  unto 
Thee,  *  I  will  remember  no  more  the  injuries  you  have 
done  unto  me  ;'  but  that  Thou  shouldest  say  so  to  the 
stiffnecked  who  persecute  Thee  daily  with  their  ini- 
quities, that  Thou  shouldest  sayj  '  I  will  that  you  should 
affectionately  pray  for  them,  I  long  to  show  them 
mercy,'  this  is  indeed  a  wonder."  Again,  God  said  to 
her,  "You  shall  delight  in  the  Cross,  eating  there,  and 
ruminating  by  yourself  the  food  of  souls,  to  the  glory 
find  praise  of  My  Holy  Name,  continually  moaning 
with  anxious  heart  over  the  death  of  the  human  race, 

*  ii.  29. 


132  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


because  you  sec  it  brought  down  to  such  misery  as 
your  tongue  cannot  express.  For  it  is  by  this  moan- 
ing and  wailing  of  my  friends  that  I  make  dispositions 
for  showing  mercy  to  the  world.  And  this  is  what  I 
am  continually  asking  of  you,  and  of  My  other  friends  ; 
and  this  will  be  the  sign  that  you  love  Me  truly  and 
I  on  My  side  promise  never  to  neglect  your  noly 
desires."  Again,  God  complained  to  her  thus :  *'  See, 
My  daughter,  with  what  sins  they  strike  Me,  especially 
with  self-love,  whence  every  evil  proceeds.  Self-love 
has  infected  the  world,  as  if  it  had  drunk  poison ;  it 
comes  from  pride,  and  holds  every  sort  of  evil  in  itself. 
Do  you,  therefore.  My  servants,  prepare  yourselves 
with  mercy,  supplications,  and  anxious  desires,  griev- 
ing over  the  offences  committed  against  me,  and  also 
over  the  damnation  of  the  sinners  themselves,  and  so 
you  will  mitigate  the  wrath  of  My  Divine  judgment." 
Here  you  see  is  another  practice  hinted  to  us,  prayer 
against  self-love  in  all  souls  throughout  the  world.  If 
you  suffer  from  it  yourself,  pray  for  the  deliverance  of 
others  from  it.  This  is  an  artifice  of  the  spiritual  life 
which  never  fails. 

We  read  in  the  life  of  St.  Clare  of  Monte  Falco,  that 
she  once  prayed  for  a  certain  person  who  was  laden 
with  the  guilt  of  great  crimes,  and  had  delayed  his 
conversion  now  to  the'  last  years  of  his  life.  Once 
and  again,  when  she  began  to  pray,  she  felt  herself 
repelled  from  prayer  by  a  hidden  violence,  and  she 
heard  an  interior  voice  telling  her  not  to  pray  for  that 
wretch,  as  she  would  not  be  heard.  She  returned, 
however,  a  third  time  to  her  prayer,  and  obtained  his 
conversion  in  the  following  manner.  She  placed  her- 
self before  Christ  the  Judge,  as  if  she  herself  were 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  135 


!aden  with  all  this  man's  sins,  and,  as  so  laden,  she 
obliged  herself  to  make  satisfaction  for  him,  and  to 
bear  all  the  punishment  which  the  order  of  Divino 
•Justice  should  desire  and  exact,  until  the  Divine  Good- 
ness should  deign  to  convert  that  soul.  This  act  so 
pleased  our  Lord,  that  the  obstinate  sinner  was  sud- 
denly converted,  and  led  a  good  life  from  that  time 
forth.  St.  Theresa  gives  this  as  a  reason  for  founding 
her  convents,  that,  as  there  are  so  many  who  oflfend 
God,  nuns  ought  to  pray  for  their  conversion,  and 
with  especial  assiduity  for  the  defenders  of  the  Church, 
and  particularly  for  preachers,  and  other  learned  men 
who  maintain  its  truth.  Yepcs  tells  us  in  his  life  of 
her,  that  she  spent  whole  nights  praying  and  weeping 
for  the  conversion  of  souls,  especially  those  infected 
with  heresy,  and  that  she  would  have  given  a  thousand 
lives  to  convert  one  soul.  The  whole  forty  years, 
during  which  she  thus  exercised  herself  in  prayer,  she 
asked  nothing  so  much  of  God  as  the  spread  of  Ilis 
glory,  and  the  augmentation  of  the  Church ;  and  she 
was  willing  to  remain  ever  so  long  in  purgatory,  if  only 
she  could  make  God  better  known  and  loved  by  men. 
In  a  like  spirit  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi  earnestly 
recommended  her  nuns  to  pray  ardently  for  the  sal- 
vation of  souls  and  the  conversion  of  sinners ;  and 
she  said  this  exercise  was  very  pleasing  to  God,  as 
well  as  profitable  to  their  own  salvation.  And  when 
our  Blessed  Lady  sent  St.  Ignatius  to  the  same  St. 
Mary  Magdalene  to  instruct  her  in  the  practice  of 
humility,  he  ended  his  instruction  with  these  words : 
"As  the  Incarnate  Word  constituted  His  apostles  fishers 
of  men,  so  has  lie  appointed  Ilis  spouses,  that  is,  nuns, 
to  make  a  prey  of  souls.*'     We  learn  also  from  the  case 

12 


134  INTERCESSORY  PRAYER, 


of  Father  Glulio  Mancinelli,  the  Jesuit,  that  God  will 
have  no  narrowness  in  this  matter ;  for,  when  he  was 
accustomed  to  pray  very  often  for  the  conversion  of 
heathen  and  heretics,  he  had  a  vision  of  angels,  wherein 
he  learned  that  God  would  have  him  pray  also  for  the 
conversion  of  the  Jews. 

2.  For  those  who  are  in  lukewarmness  and  tepidity. 
For  these  are  on  the  very  verge  of  great  sins,  and  yet 
they  are  in  a  state  of  grace  at  present.  Their  necessity 
is  great ;  and  so  they  claim  our  charity.  Their  renewal 
to  favour,  if  they  fall,  is  very  diflBcult,  more  so  than  the 
conversion  of  sinners,  and  so  it  is  a  great  glory  of  God. 
Jesus  has  given  them  the  first  grace ;  He  has  converted 
them,  and  now  He  is  on  the  point  of  losing  them  ;  Ilis 
interests  are  in  danger.  As  God  has  been  pleased  to 
reveal  to  us  His  special  distaste  for  the  lukewarm,  so 
would  it  be  very  acceptable  to  Ilim  if  we  made  prayer 
and  penance  for  the  lukewarm  one  of  our  special  devo- 
tions. Next  to  the  devotion  for  the  souls  in  purgatory, 
I  should  almost  venture  to  rank  this  devotion  for  the 
renewal  of  the  lukewarm.  Our  dear  Lord !  how  He 
seems  to  suffer  in  them !  And,  if  they  be  lost,  what 
graces  will  have  been  in  vain,  what  sacraments  wasted, 
what  a  triumph  for  our  Lord's  enemy  !  Lbeg  of  you 
to  think  of  this,  and  when  you  think  of  it,  to  think  of 
me.  It  is  a  devotion  of  much  love,  and  of  many 
graces.  And  perhaps  you  may  not  have  thought  of  it 
before. 

3.  The  multiplication  of  saints  and  their  final  perse- 
verance. The  glory  of  God,  the  good  of  souls,  and  the 
interests  of  Jesus,  are  all  implicated  here ;  and  that  in 
60  many  and  in  such  great  ways,  that  I  need  hardly 
Btop  to  point  them  out,  they  are  so  obvious.     One  saint 


INTERCESSORY  PRAYER.  135 


is  worth  a  million  of  common  Catholics.  Our  Lord 
said  even  a  stronger  thing  to  St.  Theresa, — that  one 
soul,  not  a  saint,  but  seeking  perfection,  was  more  pre- 
cious to  Him  than  thousands  living  common  lives.  It 
is  astonishing  how  unsupernatural  we  are,  even  in  our 
devotions  :  and  how  we  let  natural  principles  and  na- 
tural activity  carry  us  away  even  in  spiritual  things, 
and  when  we  are  doing  God's  work.  I  remember  a 
good  religious  telling  me  some  years  ago  that  in  a  town 
in  the  east  of  England,  he  and  his  people  had  picked 
out  certain  influential  Protestants,  of  public  notoriety, 
and  prayed  to  God  most  earnestly  for  their  conversion. 
Of  course  this  was  all  right.  However,  no  answer 
came.  At  last  it  struck  him  that  there  might  be  a  lit- 
tle too  much  forcing  of  man's  will  upon  God  in  the 
matter.  He  proposed,  therefore,  that  they  should 
change  their  prayers,  and  pray  for  those  whom  God  saw 
fittest  for  grace  :  and  all  at  once  the  blessed  epidemic 
broke  out  in  their  own  very  town,  and  it  was  our  Lord's 
sweet  will  to  swell  the  mission  there,  where  it  had  least 
been  looked  for.  Thus,  who  can  doubt  that  the  keen 
commiseration  for  England,  which  some  feel,  is  from 
God?  And  if  the  general  and  wide  object  of  their  in- 
tercession, and  the  unlikely  look  of  the  ugly  mass  of 
heresy,  immorality,  and  superstition,  tempt  them  to 
weary  in  their  charity,  why  not  pray  God  to  send  Eng- 
land or  Ireland  a  saint,  a  real  saint,  and  then  the  bat- 
tle would  be  more  than  half  won  ?  What  I  mean  is, 
that  prayers  often  seem  to  get  their  answer  quickest, 
when  they  embody  some  supernatural  principle.  It 
looks  as  if  God,  here  and  now,  set  especial  store  by  such 
acts  of  unworldliness  and  faith. 
4.  For  all  those  the  world  over  who  are  in  various 


136  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


necessities  and  tribulations,  whether  spiritual  or  tenv 
poral.  Hear  what  Orlandini  says  of  Father  Peter  Fa- 
ber,  whom  St.  Francis  Xavier  used  to  put  into  the  litany 
of  the  Saints,  and  St.  Francis  of  Sales  to  revere  as  if 
he  were  canonized.  It  increased  the  grief  and  sorrow 
of  this  tender-hearted  man  that  the  majority  of  people 
do  not  know  how  to  refer  their  affairs  and  miseries  to 
God,  but  rely  upon  human  helps  while  they  neglect 
divine  ones.  This  vehemently  stimulated  his  compas- 
sion, so  that  he  himself  laid  before  God  the  cares  and 
calamities  of  all  men,  and  became  a  suppliant  for  them 
in  all  their  straits,  troubles,  misfortunes,  and  necessi- 
ties, till  at  last  he  passionately  desired,  like  another 
Moses,  to  have  his  hands  always  lifted  up  on  high,  to 
carry  help  and  consolation  to  so  many  who  were  bat- 
tling with  suffering  and  sorrow,  whether  dead  or  liv- 
ing :  he  had  pictured  to  himself  the  various  vexations, 
calamities,  diseases,  pains,  hunger,  despair,  want,  and 
all  the  countless  evils  to  which  men  are  subject,  and  as 
a  good  and  sedulous  priest,  to  borrow  the  simile  of  St. 
Chrysostom,  he  pleaded  all  their  causes  with  God,  as  if 
he  had  been  appointed  in  some  special  way  the  common 
father  of  the  whole  world.  It  is  quite  incredible  with 
what  zeal  he  burned  to  be  the  minister  of  our  dear  Re- 
deemer, and  by  Ilim  to  aid  every  one  in  all  his  griefs ; 
nay,  if  it  may  be  said,  he  yearned,  in  spite  of  his  hu- 
mility, to  do  miracles  to  relieve  those  evils  the  cure  of 
which  is  beyond  the  bounds  of  nature. 

5.  For  the  necessities  of  our  benefactors,  among 
whom  are  to  be  reckoned  our  enemies,  because  they 
give  us  occasions  of  merit,  and  help  us  on  the  road  to 
heaven.  St.  Agnes  said  to  St.  Bridget,  "Nothing  is 
more  lovely,  or  more  acceptable  with  God,  than  to  love 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  137 


those  who  injure  us,  and  to  pray  for  our  persecutors." 
St.  Chrysostom,  speaking  of  David  and  Saul,  tells  us 
that "  it  is  reckoned  to  us  as  martyrdom,  if  we  count 
our  enemy  our  benefactor,  and  do  not  cease  to  pray  for 
him."  It  was  revealed  to  Father  Giulio  Mancinelli, 
who  was  especially  devoted  to  intercessory  prayer,  that 
he  was  one  of  seven,  then  (about  1603  A.  D.)  in  the 
Church  Militant,  who  above  others,  so  as  to  be  thus 
distinguished  in  the  sight  of  God,  prayed  for  all  men. 
It  was  once  given  him  in  a  vision  to  see  the  glory  of 
St.  Lawrence  the  martyr,  and  among  other  lights  which 
he  then  received  this  was  one, — that  we  ought  earnestly 
to  pray  for  our  benefactors,  not  only  because  of  the 
gifts  and  temporal  goods  conferred  upon  us,  but  because 
of  the  affection  of  charity  with  which  they  were  given, 
and  which  is  of  greater  esteem  than  the  gifts  them- 
selves. Both  are  to  be  repaid,  the  gifts  by  labour  and 
assiduity  in  prayer,  the  affection  of  charity  by  loving 
our  benefactors  and  getting  them  grace  from  God.  We 
must  also  in  our  gratitude  respond  to  their  intention 
for  the  Divine  honour  and  love,  for  our  benefactors  be- 
stowed their  favours  upon  us  with  a  view  to  God.  So 
we  in  like  manner,  to  recompense  this  their  reverence, 
love,  and  tenderness  toward  God  in  the  giving  of  alms, 
must  wish  well  to  them,  and  beg  of  God  that  they  may 
be  promoted  to  serve  God  more  and  more  by  works  of 
charity. 

6.  For  all  those  who  are  seriously  occupied  in  the 
pursuit  of  Christian  perfection,  and  for  whatever  they 
desire  in  order  to  that  end,  though  it  may  involve  pain 
and  suffering.  For  this  is  the  common  appetite  of  the 
Saints,  and  it  is  lawful  to  ask  it  for  them  if  they  are 
rightly  asking  it  for  themselves ;  because  it  is  good  for 


138  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


God's  glory,  for  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  for  the 
bringing  to  penance  multitudes  of  souls.  Thus  St. 
Francis  Xavier,  when  St.  Jerome  showed  himm  a  vision 
at  Bologna  all  he  was  to  suffer,  cried  out,  "  More,  0 
Lord,  more  I"  Thus  St.  Theresa  said,  "  Either  to  suf- 
fer or  to  die;"  and  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi, 
"  Neither  to  suffer  as  now,  nor  yet  to  die,  but  to  suffer 
mors."  Thus  David  exclaimed,*  *' Prove  me,  0  Lord, 
and  try  me  ;  burn  my  reins  and  my  heart :"  and  Jere- 
miasf  prays  with  natural  shrinking,  yet  with  superna- 
tural trust,  "Correct  me,  0  Lord,  but  yet  with  judg- 
ment, and  not  in  Thy  fury,  lest  Thou  bring  me  to 
nothing:"  and  Saint  Paul,J"I  please  myself  in  my 
infirmities,  in  reproaches,  in  necessities,  in  persecu- 
tions, in  distresses,  for  Christ."  And  how  unapproach- 
ably beautiful  is  that  of  Job,^  "  Can  an  unsavoury 
thing  be  eaten  that  is  not  seasoned  with  salt  ?  or  can  a 
man  taste  that  which  when  tasted  bringeth  death? 
The  things  which  before  my  soul  would  not  touch,  now, 
through  anguish,  are  my  meats.  Who  will  grant  that 
my  request  may  come,  and  that  God  may  give  me  what 
I  look  for  ?  And  that  lie  that  hath  begun  may  destroy 
me,  that  He  may  let  loose  His  hand  and  cut  me  off? 
And  that  this  may  be  my  comfort,  that,  afflicting  me 
with  sorrow.  He  spare  not,  nor  I  contradict  the  words 
of  the  Holy  One.  In  what  is  my  strength  that  I  can 
hold  out  ?  or  what  is  my  end  that  I  should  keep  pa- 
tience ?  My  strength  is  not  the  strength  of  stones,  nor 
is  my  flesh  of  brass." 

7.  It  may  be  added  here  that  some  writers  recom- 
mend prayer  for  the  increase  of  tlie  accidental  glory  of 

*Ps.  xxT.  2.  tX'24-  12Ck)r.xu.  10.  gvi.  6. 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  189 


the  blessed  in  heaven.  For  instance,  when  a  religious 
prajs  that  those  of  his  order  may  live  holily,  or  that 
some  of  them  may  come  to  be  canonized,  the  founder 
(seeing  it  in  God,  or  God  making  it  known  to  him) 
gains  an  increase  of  accidental  glory;  it  is  in  this 
sense  priests  pray  in  the  Mass,  that  the  sacrifice  may 
profit  the  Saints  to  their  honour.  Thus  Innocent  III.* 
says,  "  Many,  or  rather  most,  think  it  not  unworthy 
that  the  glory  of  the  Saints  should  be  capable  of  in- 
crease up  to  the  day  of  judgment,  and,  therefore,  that 
the  Church  may  lawfully  desire  for  them  this  increase 
of  their  glorification."  Bellarmine,  Suarez,  Vasquez, 
and  John  Sanchez  teach  the  same.  Sotus  gives  the 
joy  of  the  angels  in  heaven  over  the  sinner  doing 
penance  as  an  instance  of  it.  Our  lady  is  said  to  have 
revealed  to  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury  that  her  glory 
is  always  receiving  new  increments  in  heaven,  that  is, 
from  the  good  works  of  her  clients.  So  also  men  may 
pray  for  the  increase  of  devotion  to  particular  saints  ; 
and  it  was  revealed  to  St.  Gertrude  that  the  blessed 
receive  fresh  accidental  glory  every  time  Communion 
is  received  on  earth.  I  merely  mention  this  practice 
to  show  how  far  the  power  and  prerogatives  of  inter- 
cessory prayer  extend. 

8.  There  is  another  intercessory  devotion  of  such 
great  beauty,  that  the  simple  statement  of  it  will  be 
its  sufficient  recommendation.  This  is  to  be  found  in 
the  life  of  Marie-Denise  de  Martignat,  one  of  the  first 
religious  of  the  Visitation.  She  spent  almost  the  first 
fifty  years  of  her  life  in  the  courts  of  France  and  Savoy, 
but  the  spirit  of  the  world  never  passed  upon  her 

♦  De  Celeb.  Miss. 


140  INTERCESSORY   TRAYER. 


heart,  any  more  than  the  smell  of  fire  upon  the  gar- 
ments of  the  three  children  in  the  fiery  furnace.  The 
way  in  which  she  fenced  ofi"  the  spirit  of  the  world 
was  as  follows :  she  took  a  text  of  Scripture  for  each 
of  the  seven  days  of  the  week,  in  order  to  occupy  her 
mind  continually  with  the  words  of  truth.  Her  choice 
of  texts  was  remarkable.  On  Sunday  she  took  the 
words, — I  am  come  into  the  world  to  bring  light,  that 
he  who  believeth  in  Me  may  not  abide  in  the  darkness. 
On  Monday : — lie  was  in  the  world,  and  the  world  was 
made  by  Him,  and  the  world  knew  Ilira  not.  On 
Tuesday : — It  is  as  hard  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  as  to  pass  a  cable  through  the 
eye  of  a  needle  ;  nothing,  however,  is  impossible  with 
God.  On  Wednesday: — My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world,  and  the  devil  is  called  by  Jesus  the  prince  of 
this  world.  On  Thursday: — I  pray  not  for  the  world, 
but  for  those  whom  Thou  hast  given  Me.  On  Friday: 
Now  is  the  judgment  of  the  world ;  and  I,  if  I  am 
lifted  up,  shall  draw  all  things  unto  Me.  On  Satur- 
day : — If  you  love  Me,  My  father  will  give  you  another 
Paraclete,  to  abide  with  you  eternally,  the  Spirit  of 
Truth,  whom  the  world  cannot  receive,  because  it  seeth 
Ilim  not,  neither  knoweth  Him.  From  these  seven 
fountains  of  truth,  her  soul  was  visited  by  such  abun- 
dant lights  as  to  the  misery  of  this  world,  and  the  un- 
satisfactoriness  of  its  honours  and  pleasures,  that  she 
had  continually  in  her  mouth  the  words  of  Solomon : — 
Vanity  of  vanities,  all  things  under  the  sun  are  vanity  I 
She  used  to  say,  that  if  a  hermit  had  uttered  these 
words,  they  would  have  been  taken  for  the  exaggera- 
tion of  a  contemplative  ;  bat  that  God  having  put  them 
into  the  mouth  of  one  of  the  greatest,  richest,  and 


INTERCESSORY    PRAYER.  141 


most  peaceable  of  kings,  they  caused  in  her  such  a 
profound  compassion  for  great  people,  because  of  tbo 
risk  of  their  salvation,  that  she  took  the  rich,  high- 
born, and  prosperous  as  the  matter  for  a  special  devo- 
tion, and  desired  to  communicate  the  same  devotion  to 
every  one  she  met.  "  Ah  I"  she  exclaimed,  "  they  are 
hemmed  round  with  no  common  misery  ;  they  go  down 
to  hell  without  thinking  of  it,  because  their  staircase 
thither  is  of  gold  and  porphyry.  Great  in  this  world, 
they  let  themselves  have  no  leisure  to  reflect  that  soon 
they  will  be  very  little ;  having  the  habit  of  command- 
ing others,  they  presume  upon  themselves,  and  live  as 
if  God,  heaven,  and  the  angels  were  under  their  obedi- 
ence, as  well  as  earth  and  men.  How  will  they  be 
disenchanted,  when,  in  a  moment,  they  shall  discover 
themselves  to  have  been,  and  now  to  be  for  ever,  slaves 
of  the  devil ;  or  if  God  shows  them  mercy,  what  a 
surprise  to  them  to  find  themselves  in  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  far  below  the  poor  and  vile  whom  on  earth 
they  would  not  allow  to  come  near  them  I" 

Hence,  during  her  whole  life,  she  possessed  this 
enlightened  compassion  for  the  rich,  and  made  special 
intercession  for  them.  She  said  it  was  a  greater 
charity  to  pray  for  them  than  for  those  who  were  lan- 
guishing in  hospitals  and  prisons.  She  celebrated 
the  feasts  of  the  canonized  kings,  queens,  princes,  and 
princesses,  with  a  particular  reverence,  and  an  unusual 
devotion.  She  declared  that  nothing  ought  at  once  to 
humble  and  encourage  Christians  more  than  the  heroic 
sanctity  of  great  people  who  have  kept  hamility  in  the 
midst  of  glory,  and  have  used  this  world  as  though 
they  used  it  not.  She  was  accustomed  to  fast  on  the 
vigils  of  these  feasts,  and  all  her  prayers  on  those 


142  INTERCESSORY  PRAYER. 


dajs  were  for  the  salvation  of  great  people.  I  do  not 
know  if  it  will  seem  so  to  others,  but  to  mo  there  is 
something  extremely  touching  in  this  devotion,  so  truly 
spiritual,  considerate,  and  heavenly. 

It  is  in  harmony  with  this  her  special  devotion  that 
we  read  toward  the  conclusion  of  her  life,  that  one  day 
when  the  Superioress  asked  her  if  it  was  worth  while 
to  ask  a  certain  favour  of  a  person  of  very  high  rank, 
she  replied  :  "  Yes  !  my  dear  mother,  do  it.  I  assure 
you  it  is  a  very  great  charity  to  princes  and  great 
people  to  make  them  do  good  works.  The  world,  the 
flesh,  and  the  devil  make  them  do  so  many  bad  ones, 
that  they  will  one  day  return  more  thanks  to  us  who 
have  been  the  cause  of  their  giving  alms,  than  we  gave 
them  for  the  alms  we  procured  from  them."  Another 
time,  when  she  saw  the  Superioress  writing  to  a  prin- 
cess, she  said:  "My  dear  mother,  please  always  put 
something  in  your  letters  to  great  people  about  the 
holy  fear  of  God,  or  the  sovereignty  of  the  Divine 
Majesty,  or  the  greatness  of  eternity,  and  the  short- 
ness of  this  life.  For  there  are  always  so  many  flatter- 
ing these  poor  great  ones,  and  a  day  will  come  when 
they  will  wish  it  had  not  been  so."  When  she  heard 
of  the  death  of  Louis  XIII.,  she  said :  "  Alas !  I  saw 
that  monarch  born,  I  saw  him  baptized,  I  saw  him 
crowned,  I  saw  him  married,  I  saw  him  reigning,  and 
now  he  is  no  more !"  Somebody  asked  her  if  she  would 
pray  much  for  him ;  she  said:  "Yes!  more  than  people 
would  believe ;  for,  however  well  he  lived,  and  however 
well  he  died,  he  may  possibly  have  something  still  to 
satisfy  for  to  the  equitable  justice  of  the  King  of  kings. 
He  is  gone  into  a  kingdom  which  is  only  conquered  by 
the  humble  of  heart.    No  one  goes  in  there  sceptre  in 


INTERCESSORY  PRAYER.  143 


hand."  She  also  said  the  Office  of  the  dead  every 
Monday  for  the  souls  of  princes  and  princesses  ;  and 
every  Friday  for  the  knights  of  Malta,  and  those  who 
died  in  battle  for  the  Church  ;  and  she  often  recited  the 
Gradual  Psalms  for  those  in  the  army,  lest  they  should 
acquire  habits  of  vice  in  that  which  is  not  the  best 
of  schools  for  holy  living,  though  it  is  far  from  having 
been  unfruitful  of  saints. 

A  word  on  the  time,  place,  and  method  of  inter- 
cession. These  may  be  left  to  every  one's  choice  ;  the 
following  are  suggestions.  1.  To  have  particular  days 
in  the  week  for  particular  objects,  as  1.  For  the  Pope. 
2.  For  the  Clergy  and  religious  orders.  3.  For  all  in 
mortal  sin.  4.  For  all  in  their  agony.  5.  For  the 
lukewarm.  6.  For  those  in  sorrow.  7.  For  those 
whom  God  wishes  us  specially  to  pray  for.  Or  to  have 
a  scheme  of  thirty  objects  for  the  days  of  the  month. 
2.  To  note  down  objects  in  writing,  and  keep  it  in  our 
missal  or  prayer-book,  or  on  our  priedieu.  To  visit 
the  Blessed  Sacrament,  and  go  through  this  paper, 
meditatively,  exciting  aJBbctions  of  zeal  for  the  Divine 
honour,  and  of  loving  solicitude  for  the  interests  of 
Jesus.  4.  To  agree  with  our  Lord  to  take  some  word, 
or  ejaculation,  or  offering,  which  shall  stand  for  all  our 
objects,  and  use  it  at  mass  and  communion,  in  our 
thanksgiving,  before  and  after  meditation,  rosary,  and 
examen,  &c.  5.  If  we  are  sleepless  at  night,  or  from 
any  cause  have  short  intervals  of  unexpected  leisure  in 
our  ordinary  occupations,  to  have  recourse  to  interces- 
sion. And  so  practices  might  be  multiplied  almost 
infinitely.  The  best  will  be  those  which  are  the  most 
simple,  come  naturally,  and  rise  out  of  our  usual  d^vo- 
fcional  exercises  ;  only  remember  that  one  of  the  objects 


144  INTERCESSORY   PRAYER. 


for  which  we  came  into  this  world  was  to  make  inter* 
cessory  prayer. 

Oh  the  unfathomable  sweetness  of  this  mystery  of 
prayer !  Do  let  me  say  it  again.  One  of  the  ends  for 
which  we  came  into  the  world  was  to  make  interces- 
sion. One  of  the  ends  for  which  our  blessed  Saviour 
shed  His  Precious  Blood  was  that  we  might  make 
acceptable  and  efficacious  intercession.  One  of  the 
things  that  God  is  waiting  for  us  to  do  now  is  inter- 
cession. Yet  how  much  time  do  we  habitually  spend 
in  the  delightful  exercise  of  this  great  privilege !  How 
we  talk  of  popes  and  cardinals,  of  bishops,  priests,  and 
religious  orders!  How  we  overflow  with  the  prattle  of 
devotional  or  ecclesiastical  gossip !  We  have  a  criti- 
cism for  everybody's  conduct  in  every  thing.  We  could 
teach  them  better.  We  could  show  them  the  riglit 
way.  We  take  higher  views,  and  burn  with  hotter 
zeal.  We  get  an  easy  character  for  piety  by  talking 
much  and  fluently  about  God,  and  by  making  ourselves 
very  tiresome  to  others  by  our  fidgets  about  ecclesias- 
tical plans  and  the  interests  of  Catholicism.  Conver- 
sational fidgets,  for  the  most  part,  and  stopping  there ; 
we  are  not  to  the  fore,  when  doing,  tedious  doing  is 
required.  Oh  yes !  we  have  all  of  us  got  a  psalm,  and 
a  prophecy,  and  a  doctrine  ;  the  Corinthians  could  not 
come  near  us  in  the  variety  of  our  wisdoms  and  our 
gifts  ;  we  could  beat  them  down  ;  we  could  surprise  St. 
Paul ;  so  exuberant,  so  oracular,  so  necessary  to  God, 
His  pope,  and  His  church,  does  our  talk  show  us  to  be, 
or  at  least  show  that  we  think  ourselves  to  be !  Now 
I  wonder  how  much  we  pray.  I  wonder  what  propor- 
tion our  secret  intercession  bears  to  our  open  criticism. 
I  should  fear  it  vas  very  little ;  for  I  cannot  help  fan- 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER.  145 


eying  that  if  we  prayed  more  we  should  feel  that  we 
prayed  so  little,  that  we  should  not  dare,  for  shame's 
sake,  to  talk  at  all.  I  have  a  great  notion  of  the  spirit 
of  concealment  being  something  like  two-thirds  of  prac- 
tical Christianity.  I  will  be  bound  our  praying  people 
lie  hid  among  those  who  never  tell  us  how  deeply  they 
are  interested  in  Catholic  affairs.  The  eye  that  is 
quick  to  see  a  fault,  and  the  ear  that  loves  to  listen  to 
criticism,  and  the  tongue  that  brags, — these  will  be  the 
signs  of  a  praying  soul, — when  the  rainbow  comes  to 
be  the  emblem  of  despair,  and  not  before  ! 

The  whole  duty  of  intercessory  prayer,  and  our  own 
discharge  of  it,  may  help  us  to  one  of  those  occasional 
revelations  which  are  so  profitable  to  our  souls.  Our 
spiritual  life  seems  to  be  going  on  all  safely  and 
smoothly.  We  do  not  imagine  ourselves  to  be  saints. 
But  we  feel  we  are  taking  pains.  We  manage  to  keep 
ourselves  in  a  state  of  grace.  N^ay,  we  have  made  dis- 
tinct sacrifices  for  God,  either  in  being  converted  to 
the  faith,  or  in  entering  religion,  or  in  embracing  the 
ecclesiastical  state,  or  in  some  way  or  other ;  and  al- 
though we  do  not  actually  rest  upon  the  meritorious- 
ness  of  these  sacrifices  as  though  our  predestination 
were  finally  and  happily  fulfilled  by  them,  yet  we  never 
forget  them,  and  the  thought  of  them  is  a  continual 
support  to  us.  These  are  beginnings  of  something  very 
bad.  But  our  Lord  comes  to  our  rescue,  and  without 
any  apparent  cause  a  supernatural  light  is  poured  into 
our  souls,  illuminating  every  corner  and  hiding-place, 
and  revealing  to  us,  in  a  most  startling  way,  how  very 
little  after  all  we  have  done  for  God.  It  is  like  the 
light  of  the  Particular  Judgment,  which  lays  all  our 
life  with  its  actions  and  motives  clearly  before  us  in 
K  13 


146  INTERCESSORY  PRAYER. 


one  moment,  so  that  God  may  be  justified,  and  vre  pass 
a  fair  sentence  on  ourselves.  Oh,  how  blessed  are  these 
little  revelations !  For  out  of  them  comes  humility, 
and  freshness,  and  strength,  and  joy  in  Jesus,  and 
abandonment  of  self  in  the  arms  of  God.  We  could 
not  believe  we  did  so  little  for  God,  if  this  gracious 
light  did  not  flash  it  upon  us  in  such  a  way  that  we 
cannot  refuse  to  see,  or  doubt  that  we  have  seen  it. 
Think  of  intercession,  and  see  whether  it  may  not 
bring  you  now  another  of  these  affectionate  reve- 
lations. 

It  is  diflBcult  to  have  the  better  of  our  Lord  in  the 
strife  of  liberality  and  love.  Of  all  the  fruits  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  none  seems  more  desirable,  because  none 
is  less  earthly  or  more  heavenly,  than  joy ;  and  it  is 
just  this  fruit  which  our  Blessed  Lord  bestows  on  such 
as  devote  themselves  to  intercession.  This  is  very 
observable.  There  is  a  certain  sunniness  and  light- 
heartedness  about  them  for  which  there  seems  no  ordi- 
nary cause,  except  that  it  is  like  the  sweet  lightening 
of  the  spirit  which  comes  after  a  kind  and  unselfish 
action.  This  may  partly  be  the  reason.  But  there  is 
another  also.  We  see  not  the  fruit  of  our  intercession ; 
the  spirit  of  prayer  escapes  out  upon  the  earth,  and  is 
everywhere  like  the  hidden  omnipresence  of  God.  It 
is  out  of  our  sight.  Nay,  it  is  not  like  a  series  of  dis- 
tinguishable works.  We  hardly  remember  how  much 
intercession  we  have  made.  Who  can  count  the  sighs 
he  has  sent  up  to  God,  or  the  wishes  without  words 
which  the  tongue  of  his  heart  has  told  into  the  ear  of 
Jesus  ?  And  so  from  the  fruit  being  hidden,  vain- 
glory attaches  to  it  less  than  to  almost  any  other  devo- 
tion.   However  this  mav  be,  sweetness  and  conSolsr 


INTERCESSORY   PRAYER,  147 

tlon,  submissively  desired,  are  beyond  all  doub^  great 
helps  to  holiness  ;  and  whosoever  desires  to  joy  iu  God, 
and  to  abound  in  all  joy  and  consolation  in  the  Lord, 
to  be  gay  and  prompt  in  serving  Jesus,  to  be  patient 
with  life  because  of  the  desire  of  death,  and  to  be 
equable  in  all  things,  which  is  not  far  from  being  holy 
in  all  things,  let  him  throw  away  himself  and  his  own 
ends,  and  wedding  the  dear  interests  of  Jesus  and  of 
souls,  betake  himself  to  intercession,  as  if  it  were  his 
trade,  or  he  had  as  much  to  do  with  it  as  his  guardian 
angel  has  to  do  with  him.  Joy  is  the  especial  recom- 
pense of  intercession.  It  is  part  of  His  joy,  who  re- 
joices in  the  harvest  of  His  Passion.  What  stira  in 
our  hearts  has  come  to  us  from  His !  It  was  firfcc  in 
His,  before  it  was  in  ours,  and  an  angel's  prer'^nce 
would  be  less  desirable  than  is  that  little  taste  cf  the 
Redeemer's  joy. 


CHAPTER  V. 


%\t  gid]ts  jaf  mi  ^qMi 


F  we  are  in  earnest  about  our  souls, 
with  a  quiet  fidelity  to  those  duties, 
practices,  and  devotions,  which 
obedience  sanctions  to  us,  our 
love  of  God  increases  without  our 
knowing  or  feeling  it.  It  is  only 
now  and  then,  in  certain  tempta- 
tions, or  on  great  feasts,  or  some- 
times without  apparent  cause,  that 
God  allows  us  to  perceive  that  we  have 
really  made  some  progress,  and  that  we 
care  more  for  Him  and  less  for  any 
thing  else  but  Him,  than  we  used  to  do. 
One  sign  to  us  of  this  increase  of  love  is 
the  growing  sense  of  our  own  unworthi- 
ness,  and  of  the  extreme  littleness  of  every 
thing  we  do.  It  becomes  a  pain  to  us  that 
we  have  so  little  to  offer  to  God,  and  that  our 
service  of  Him  is  after  all  so  wretched  and  ungenerous. 
The  more  we  know  Him,  and  the  more  we  approach  to 
thoughts  at  least  a  little  more  worthy  of  His  blessed 
Majesty,  the  more  this  feeling  increases  upon  us,  and, 
as  I  say,  becomes  a  pain.  It  is  this  which  drives  the 
saints  to  yearn  for  suffering  and  to  pray  for  crosses. 
The  common  cares,  the  ordinary  weariness  of  life,  are 


THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY.  149 


not  enough  to  satisfy  them,  because  they  do  not  give 
them  room  for  their  heroic  love.  They  want,  a  vain 
yet  loving  strife !  to  keep  pace  with  the  generosity  of 
Jesus.  Why  should  they  do  so  little  for  him  ?  AVhy 
should  they  be  thus  imprisoned  and  kept  in  by  the 
littleness  of  every  thing  round  about  them  ?  If  sin 
was  once  a  misery  to  them,  now  their  inability  to  love 
God  royally  and  magnificently,  to  spend  themselves 
and  to  be  spent  for  Ilim  in  glorious  sacrifices — this  has 
become  a  greater  misery  to  them.  Like  Areuna,  they 
would  give  to  their  King  as  kings  give,  with  full 
hands  and  prodigal  expenditure.  When  God  Himself 
gives  them  quiet  times,  and  multiplies  their  joy  and 
peace,  they  turn  against  Him,  so  to  speak,  with 
amorous  complaint,  "Nay,  but  I  will  buy  it  of  thee  at 
a  price,  and  I  will  not  ofi"er  to  the  Lord  my  God  holo- 
caust free-cost."*  Then  they  say  strange  things,  that 
sound  undoctrinal,  about  their  being  ready  to  endure 
all  the  pains  of  hell  to  all  eternity,  if  only  they  can 
thereby  promote  God's  glory  one  little  degree ;  and 
they  talk  of  disinterested  love  until  they  almost  seem 
to  incur  the  censures  of  condemned  propositions. 

These  thoughts  are  not  for  us.  They  would  be  un- 
real in  us.  But  we  too,  in  our  measure,  feel  this  pain. 
We  want  to  do  more  for  Jesus,  and  our  own  cowardice 
when  we  come  to  the  point  is  a  keen  misery  and  a  sen- 
sible shame  to  us.  "  Copious  redemption,"  says  the 
Psalmist,  "  there  is  with  God  ;"  and  it  is  this  copious- 
ness of  our  redemption  which  at  once  stimulates  our 
love,  and  makes  it  discontented  with  itself.  All  that 
Jesus  has  done  for  us  has  been  done  with  such  un- 


*  2  Kings  xxiT.  2-t. 
13* 


150  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY. 


necessary  abundance,  -with  such  outpouring  of  affec- 
tion, with  such  supernatural  profuseness  of  mercy  and 
compassion,  that  it  is  plain  at  every  step,  in  each 
separate  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  that  -what  He 
wants  is,  not  our  salvation  only,  but  our  love  also. 
The  same  longing  and  luxury  (deliciae)  to  be  with  the 
children  of  men,  Ilis  creatures,  which  would  have  led 
Ilim,  if  man  had  never  fallen,  to  come  to  us  in  an  im- 
passible body,  and  of  the  same  Virgin  Mother,  now^ 
that  we  have  fallen  and  He  has  had  to  come  to  us  as  a 
passible  Redeemer,  seems  only  to  run  riot  all  the  more 
in  the  depths  of  its  own  tenderness  and  love.  He  can- 
not pardon,  but  He  must  at  the  same  time  adopt  as 
sons.  He  cannot  cleanse  us  from  sin  without  making 
us  heirs  of  heaven.  He  cannot  absolve  from  the  past, 
but  at  the  same  time  He  stores  us  with  grace  for  the 
future.  Every  gift  He  gives  is  double,  treble,  or  a 
hundred-fold.  One  drop  of  blood  would  have  done, 
and  He  shed  every  drop.  Grace  would  have  sufficed 
for  His  sacrament  of  love,  but  He  must  needs  give 
Himself,  Body,  Soul,  and  Divinity.  The  Blessed 
Sacrament  is  a  superfluous  mercy,  an  unnecessary 
love.  Only  that  to  show  most  love  and  to  get  most 
love— -this  was  what  was  intended.  This  is  His  way. 
And  as  we  get  to  know  Him  and  to  love  Him  more, 
we  want  it  to  be  our  way  also.  And  the  little  wc  can 
do  seems  so  little,  so  very  little  ! 

Now,  from  what  we  know  of  Him  we  may  be  sure 
He  would  never  leave  us  in  this  predicament.  He  de- 
sires nothing  so  much  as  our  love  ;  He  would  never 
leave  us  without  adequate  means  of  loving  Him.  If 
an  earthly  father  knew  that  his  child  was  longing  to 
make  him  a  present,  but  had  not  the  means,  with  what 


THE  RICHES   OP   OUR   POYJERTY.  151 


prompt  hand  and  overflowing  heart  would  he  furnish 
him  with  the  means  !  Will  Jesus  do  less  ?  That  at 
least  is  not  His  way.  Look  at  what  He  did  to  His 
Mother  at  the  Presentation.  No  creature,  nor  all 
creatures  put  together,  ever  loved  God  as  she  did  at 
that  hour.  And  never  yet  had  that  ever-blessed  and 
most  dear  Majesty  been  worshipped  with  an  adequate 
act  of  worship.  The  angels,  with  all  the  varied  powers 
and  faculties  and  manifold  affections  of  their  nine 
choirs,  had  been  casting  their  gifts  before  the  throne 
with  fiery  love  and  burning  songs  of  praise  these 
thousands  of  years,  and  the  Divine  Complacency  had 
mercifully  stooped  to  feed  itself  upon  them.  Mary 
herself,  the  lowly  and  the  chaste,  was  a-more  sweet 
act  of  worship  to  the  Most  High,  and  all  the  everlast- 
ing jffaise  of  the  heavenly  hierarchies  would  fill  up  but 
a  little  corner  in  her  Immaculate  Heart.  Yet  even  she 
fell  short,  and  oh  how  far  short  ?  Sweet  Mother !  she 
knew  this  well ;  none  knew  it  better ;  and  if  ever  love 
could  have  run  wild  in  the  blessed  and  worshipful 
calmness  of  her  immense  virtue,  as  it  did  w^ith  her 
children  the  saints,  and  their  weaker  grace,  she  might 
have  wished  to  be  annihilated,  if  so  only  she  could 
have  worshipped  God  with  a  sufficient  love.  But 
Jesus  came  to  the  rescue  of  her  love.  He  put  Himself 
into  her  arms,  and  said  to  her,  "  Offer  Me !  I  am 
equal  to  My  Father!  I  am  a  gift,  not  worthy  only 
but  of  the  selfsame  price  and  value,  infinite,  unuttera- 
ble as  Himself!"  Now  for  the  first  time  shall  the 
most  Holy  Trinity  have  an  act  of  fitting  worship. 
Every  Attribute  shall  be  glorified,  every  perfection 
crowned  with  a  crown  of  love  and  adoration,  every 
mercy  be  recompensed ;  every  debt  and  duty  of  every 


152  THE   RICHES    OF    OUR   POVERTY. 


creature  shall  be  satisfied ;  nay,  the  love  and  worship 
of  all  possible  creatures  shall  be  by  one  act  outrun  and 
overpassed  for  ever!  Oh  joj^,  exceeding  joy,  yea,  to 
those  who  love  our  most  dear  God,  a  joy  beyond  all 
other  joys !  And  heaven  v^'as  silent,  and  the  angela 
with  spirits  gushing  with  love  looked  down  adoringly, 
and  on  this  earth  of  ours  in  Sion's  temple,  Mary  took 
her  Babe  into  her  arms,  and  held  Him  up,  and  gave 
Ilim  with  all  the  might  and  impetus  of  self-sacrifice  to 
the  Eternal  Father.  And  so  she,  the  first  of  all  crea- 
tures who  did  so,  worshipped  God  aright,  and  gave 
due  glory  to  the  Eternal.  And  now,  oh  mysterious 
love,  whereby  our  dear  Lord  will  persist  in  making 
Himself  so'  common  !  there  is  not  a  moment,  day  or 
night,  on  this  round  globe  of  earth,  that  the  same 
Child,  the  Living  Host,  is  not  being  elevated  by  mor- 
tal hands  between  earth  and  heaven,  here,  or  at  our 
antipodes ! 

Thus,  also,  does  He  come  to  the  rescue  of  our  love 
as  well.  He  can  do  so  in  two  ways.  First  of  all,  by 
giving  to  the  littleness  of  our  actions  an  immensity  of 
value  by  uniting  them  to  His  own,  and  letting  the 
worth  of  His  own  flow  into  them.  Of  this  hereafter. 
Secondly,  He  can  do  so  by  treating  us  as  he  treated 
Mary,  giving  us  Himself  and  all  that  belongs  to  Him 
to  do  with  what  he  will,  and  to  offer  to  God,  as  and 
when  we  please.  And  it  is  of  these  riches  of  our  po- 
verty I  am  going  to  speak  at  present. 

It  is  really  very  difficult  to  believe  our  own  greatnes? 
and  nobility  in  Christ.  The  catalogue  of  our  privileges 
always  seem  to  be  only  a  sort  of  devout  exaggeration. 
Take  yourself  at  any  given  moment,  whether  of  pain 
and  weariness,  or  of  satisfaction  and  sensible  devotion, 


THE  RICHES   OP   OUR  POVERTY.  153 


and  you  will  see  how  difi&cult  it  is  not  so  much  to  hope, 
as  to  believe  that  some  day  you  will  really  be  saved, 
dead,  judged,  crowned,  in  Heaven,  and  eternity  before 
you.  It  is  not  so  much  that  you  fear  the  opposite,  as 
that  the  greatness  of  the  reward,  the  infinity  of  the  bliss, 
and  the  contrast  with  your  present  misery  and  lowness, 
are  more  than  you  can  take  in.  You  meditate  on  Hea- 
ven, and  then  you  think.  Will  there  be  a  moment,  or 
an  hour,  while  men  on  earth  are  going  on  as  usual,  and 
I  shall  be  thus,  in  the  fixed  possession  and  enjoyment 
of  all  this  ?  And  you  smile,  not  exactly  with  incredu- 
lity, but  as  Sara  smiled  when  she  heard  the  angel  say 
that  she  should  have  a  son.  So  in  its  measure  is  it 
with  the  inheritance  we  have  in  Christ  even  when  on 
earth.  It  seems  too  much.  Yet  St.  Paul  says  to  the 
Corinthians,^  "  All  things  are  yours,  whether  it  be  the 
world,  or  life,  or  death,  or  things  present,  or  things  to 
come ;  for  all  are  yours,  and  you  are  Christ's,  and 
Christ  is  God's.''  And  again  to  the  Hebrews,!  he 
says,  not  you  shall  hereafter,  but  you  are  already, 
"come  to  mount  Sion,  and  to  the  city  of  the  living 
God,  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  the  company  of 
many  thousands  of  angels,  and  to  the  church  of  the  first- 
born who  are  written  in  the  heavens,  and  to  God  the 
judge  of  all,  and  to  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect, 
and  to  Jesus  the  Mediator  of  the  new  Testament,  and 
to  the  sprinkling  of  blood  which  speaketh  better  than 
that  of  Abel."  When  Mary  rules  with  her  sweet 
sceptre  of  ever-granted  prayer  over  the  empire  of  the 
Sacred  Heart,  it  is  our  kingdom  over  which  she  is  the 
queen.     All  it  is  and  all  it  has  is  ours,  for  "  all  thinga 

*  1  Cor.  iii.  t  xii.  22. 


154  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY. 


are  ours,  and  we  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's." 
For  these  are  our  treasures,  which  lie  has  given  us, 
having  won  them  for  us  with  His  Blood :  His  own  Sa- 
cred Humanity,  Body  and  Soul,  His  Childhood,  Hidden 
Life,  Ministry,  Passion,  Blessed  Sacrament,  and  Ses- 
sion at  the  Father's  Bight  Hand  ;  His  Mother,  all  sh*- 
is  or  has  ;  His  countless  angels  beautiful  and  strong ; 
all  the  good  works  and  penances  of  earth  ;  all  the 
masses  that  are  said ;  and  the  countless  sufferings  of 
those  in  purgatory ;  the  graces  which  the  lost  had  and 
did  not  correspond  to ;  the  sanctity  of  the  Saints,  Jo- 
seph, the  Baptist,  the  Apostles,  and  the  rest ;  all  the 
praise  of  birds  and  beasts  and  the  orderly  elements ; 
all  that  possible  creatures  could  do  ;  God's  past  mercies, 
through  the  Old  Testament  History  downward;  and 
the  love  which  the  Three  Divine  Persons  bear  to  each 
other,  and  the  incommunicable  love  wherewith  God 
loves  Himself  eternally. 

These  things  are  ours  in  Christ.  Oh  surely  a  fair  and 
magnificent  domain  !  These  things  He  puts  into  our 
hands,  just  as  He  put  Himself  into  Mary's  hands  at  the 
Presentation,  that  we  may  be  able  to  satisfy  our  love. 
What  blessed  occupation  for  our  time !  what  heaven 
begun  on  earth !  Every  one  of  these  things  we  can 
use,  as  freely  as  if  it  wore  our  own,  for  three  distinct 
purposes ;  and  we  can  merit  by  them  all,  as  by  oui 
own  actions,  for  the  oblation  of  them  is  our  own.  He 
gives  us  them  to  be  offered.  First,  we  may  use  them 
to  make  acts  of  love,  and  secondly,  to  make  acts  of 
thanksgiving.  Of  these  two  uses  I  shall  speak  here- 
after. And  thirdly,  we  may  use  them  for  intercession, 
and  this  is  what  we  have  to  do  with  at  present.  If  we 
have  laid  well  to  heart  the  lessons  of  the  last  chapter, 


THE   RICHES    OF   OUR   POVERTT.  155 


we  shall  feel  so  drawn  to  the  blessed  practice  of  inter- 
cession, that  vre  shall  be  discontented  with  our  own 
means  of  interceding.  We  shall  feel  that  our  dry,  bald 
petitions,  our  cold  words,  our  slovenly  devotions,  what 
with  the  distraction  of  our  employments,  and  what  with 
the  hardness  of  our  hearts,  can  never  satisfy  the  loving 
desires  we  feel  to  promote  by  intercession  the  gloryof  God, 
the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the  good  of  souls.  See  then  ! 
Jesus  puts  all  these  things  into  our  hands  as  weapons 
of  intercession.  He  fills  our  quiver  full  of  these  arrows, 
dipped  in  potent  balms,  to  wound  His  Sacred  Heart, 
which  lie  uncovers  to  us  for  our  aim.  If  aimed  with  de- 
vout intention,  they  must  reach  the  mark,  and  if  they 
reach  it  they  must  wound  infallibly.  As  there  are  no 
bounds  to  Ilis  love  of  us,  so  does  He  seem  bent  that  there 
shall  be  almost  no  bounds  to  our  possibilities  of  loving 
Ilim.  Love  would  not  be  love,  if  having  these  treasures  it 
did  not  use  them.  When,  therefore,  we  desire  to  in- 
tercede with  God  for  something  which  is  to  His  greater 
glory,  we  can  offer  to  Him  any  of  these  things,  present- 
ing to  Him  the  actions  themselves,  that  they  may  ap- 
pease Ilig  anger  and  stir  His  compassion  toward  us.  The 
mere  offering,  with  a  devout  intention,  is  a  great  thing, 
and  avails  much,  just  as  the  silent  presence  in  heaven 
of  the  Five  Wounds  which  our  Lord  deigned  to  keep 
after  His  resurrection,  is  said  by  theologians  to  be  our 
Lord's  intercession,  csntinually  pleading  with  the  Fa- 
ther, though  our  Lord  no  longer  prays  for  us  as  He  did 
on  earth.  But  we  ought  not  to  stop  here  with  the  ac- 
tions only.  We  should  endeavour  to  unite  ourselves 
with  the  dispositions  in  which  Jesus,  Mary,  the  angels 
or  the  saints  did  the  particular  action  in  question.  This 
mil  make  our  intercession  still  more  eflScacious  and 


156  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY. 

still  more  meritorious.  We  may  also,  if  we  please, 
wish  the  action  could  be  multiplied  a  thousand  times, 
60  that  God  should  have  more  and  more  accidental  glory 
thereby.  Oh,  it  is  astonishing  how  the  conversion  of 
sinners  will  come  in  upon  us,  how  quickly  scandal  will 
be  abated,  how  the  dews  of  grace  will  become  heavy 
rains,  and  fructify  in  the  Church,  if  we  devote  ourselves 
to  this  practice  !  And  we  shall  not  be,  as  in  past  years 
we  have  so  often  been,  like  Gedeon's  fleece,  dry,  almost 
miraculously  dry,  when  all  was  wet  around  ! 

1.  Take  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  our  dearest  Lord. 
We  may  offer  to  God  the  perfections  and  powers  of  His 
Human  Soul,  the"  abysses  of  grace,  science,  and  glory, 
which  are  in  it ;  the  love  with  which  it  loves  God  at 
this  moment,  and  all  the  love  with  which  it  will  ever 
love  Him,  to  all  eternity.  We  may  ask  for  the  conver- 
sion of  a  sin-stained  soul,  by  the  beauty  and  brightness 
of  his  Soul  which  at  this  hour  is  so  lighting  up  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  that  it  needs  "neither  sun  nor 
moon  to  lighten  it,  for  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof." 
We  may  ask  health  and  strength  for  the  preachers  and 
missioners  of  our  Lord  by  all  the  perfections  of  His  glo- 
rified Body  at  this  hour.  Or  leaving  heaven,  we  may 
come  down  to  earth,  and  offer  to  the  Father  all  the  un- 
speakable worship  which  our  Lord's  mystical  life  in 
the  Blessed  Sacrament  is  offering  Him  from  a  thousand 
thousand  tabernacles ;  the  poverty,  the  humiliation, 
the  obedience  to  His  priests,  the  zeal  for  souls,  the  re- 
fraining of  His  senses,  the  endurance  of  sacrileges,  the 
patient  love,  the  miraculous  manifestations  of  that  Hid- 
den Life.  Or,  again,  we  may  draw  upon  the  past. 
There  is  the  act  of  love  in  the  moment  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, the  imprisc  nment  for  nine  long  months  in  Mary's 


THE   RICHES   OF    OUR    POVERTY.  157 


Blessed  Womb,  the  virtues  practised  there,  and  the 
world  governed  from  thence.  There  is  the  Nativity, 
and  the  mysteries  of  the  first  twelve  years,  Bethlehem, 
Egypt,  Nazareth,  and  Jerusalem,  all  they  mean  and 
contain  of  the  unfathomable  humiliations  of  the  Incar- 
nate Word,  and  of  His  inexpressible  love  for  Mary  and 
for  men.  There  is  the  Hidden  Life  at  Nazareth,  the 
hiddenness  of  the  Omnipresent,  the  obedience  of  the 
Omnipotent,  the  poverty  of  the  All-rich,  the  fatigue  of 
the  Great  Creator,  the  prayer  of  God,  the  love  for  Jo- 
seph, the  sanctification  of  Mary,  the  merits  and  the 
satisfactions,  and  the  complacency  of  angels,  Mary,  and 
of  God  in  the  wonders  and  virtues  of  those  eighteen 
years.  There  is  the  Three  Years'  Ministry,  the  baptism 
by  John,  and  the  fasting  in  tlie  wilderness,  Ilis  way 
with  His  disciples,  and  Ilis  way  with  sinners,  the  con- 
tradictions He  encountered,  the  sermons  He  preached, 
the  miracles  He  wrought,  the  weariness  he  endured. 
Then  we  come  to  the  shore  of  the  illimitable  sea  of  His 
most  dear  Passion,  the  seven  journeys,  the  five  trials, 
the  seven  words ;  and  beyond  that  we  have  the  Risen 
Life,  the  various  apparitions,  specially  that  first  one  to 
His  Mother,  the  forty  days  of  secret  legislation  for  the 
matter  and  form  of  the  sacraments  and  for  the  Church, 
all  the  beauty,  charity,  and  hiddenness  of  those  days, 
the  words  spoken,  the  wonders  done,  the  graces  given, 
the  blessings  imparted,  and  then  the  admirable  pomp 
of  His  ascension.  When  will  this  fountain  have  run 
dry?  When,  if  we  never  repeated  the  same  thing 
twice  over,  shall  we  have  exhausted  these  marvellous 
infinite  acts,  infinite  not  in  themselves,  but  by  their 
union  with  His  Divine  Person,  and  which  have  such 
unlimited  power  with  God  ?     All  these  are  at  our  dis- 

14 


158  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR  POVERTY 


posal  for  intercession ;  and  we  may  well  belieTe  thcj 
will  have  especial  efficacy  when  suited  to  the  sacred 
seasons  of  the  year,  all  except  the  Passion,  which  has 
all  seasons  for  its  own. 

2.  Now,  to  speak  of  the  intercessory  use  we  may 
make  of  the  Passion.  "VVe  should  naturally  expect  to 
find  that  as  the  work  of  our  redemption  was  principally 
achieved  through  the  mysteries  of  our  Blessed  Lord's 
Passion,  He  should  desire  those  mysteries  to  be  espe- 
cially in  our  remembrance,  and  should  allow  them  to 
prevail  with  His  Sacred  Heart  over  all  others,  when 
offered  to  Ilim  in  love,  thanksgiving,  or  intercession. 
St.  Bernard  declares  that  the  mere  thought  of  our 
Lord's  Passion  is  a  spiritual  communion.  Father 
Balthazar  Alvarez  not  only  made  it  the  ordinary  sub- 
ject of  his  meditations,  but  he  used  to  say  to  his 
novices,  "  We  must  not  think  we  have  done  any  thing 
until  we  have  reached  this  point,  that  we  never  in  our 
hearts  forget  Christ  crucified."  F.  Benedict,  of  Can- 
field,  declares,  that  souls  in  the  highest  mystical  union 
with  God  still  retain  meditation  on  theJPassion  ;  though 
F.  Baker  and  others  deny  it  in  the  sense  of  express 
meditation.  Our  Lord  Himself  said  to  St.  Mary 
Magdalene  of  Pazzi,  **  If,  every  Friday,  you  will  pay 
attention  to  the  hour  in  which  I  expired  upon  the 
cross,  you  will  at  once  receive  particular  graces  from 
My  spirit,  which  I  then  returned  to  the  Eternal 
Father ;  and  although  you  do  not  feel  this  grace,  it 
shall  always  rest  upon  you.'^  And  the  great  bell  of 
the  Duomo  still  calls  the  faithful  of  Florence  to  this 
sacred  remembrance.  The  Blessed  Clare  of  Monte- 
Falco  had  the  Passion  so  perpetually  in  her  thoughts, 
that  every  thing  she  saw  became  instantl}^  an  ingenious 


THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY.  159 


memorial  of  something  connected  with  our  Blessed 
Saviour's  sufferings.  Our  Lord  said  to  the  Blessed 
Veronica,  the  Augustinianess,  "  I  wish  all  men  to  do 
their  best  to  sorrow  in  their  hearts  through  veneration 
for  My  Passion,  as  if  compassionating  Me.  If  they 
shed  one  little  tear  over  it,  they  may  be  sure  they  have 
done  a  great  thing ;  for  the  tongue  of  man  cannot  tell 
what  joy  and  satisfaction  that  one  little  tear  causes 
Me."  The  angels  revealed  to  the  Blessed  Joanna  of 
the  Cross,  that  the  Divine  Majesty  took  such  compla- 
cency in  sorrow  for  the  Passion  of  Christ,  and  that 
such  sorrow  was  so  grateful  a  sacrifice,  that  it  was 
reckoned  equal  to  the  shedding  of  our  blood,  or  the 
endurance  of  groat  afiiictions.  St.  Theodore  Studita 
cautions  us  that  though  Easter  is  come,  we  must  on 
no  account  let  the  memory  of  the  Passion  fade  away, 
but  keep  the  life-giving  wounds,  the  cross,  and  sepul- 
ture always  before  our  eyes.  Orlandini  tells  us  of  a 
saying  of  Father  Peter  Faber,  that  as  the  Passion  was 
Christ's  road  to  glory,  so  compassion  for  the  Passion 
is  ours.  Our  Lord  said  to  St.  Gertrude,  '*  Every  one, 
even  though  he  should  feel  himself  weighed  to  the 
ground  with  great  sins,  may  breathe  freely  v/ith  the 
hope  of  pardon,  if  he  will  only  ofier  to  God  the  Father 
My  most  innocent  Passion  and  Death ;  let  him  be  sure 
that  by  this  he  shall  receive  the  saving  fruit  of  indul- 
gence ;  for  there  is  no  remedy  on  earth  so  efficacious 
against  sin,  as  a  devout  recollection  of  My  Passion, 
joined  with  true  repentance  and  a  right  faith."  The 
Blessed  Albertus  Magnus  used  to  say  that  a  single  tear 
shed  over  our  Lord's  Passion,  was  better  than  a  year's 
fast  on  bread  and  water,  with  watchings  and  disciplines 
St.  Mary  Magdalene  revealed  to  a  certain  holy  Domini- 


160  THE   RICHES    OF   TOVERTY. 


can.,  that  when  she  retired  into  the  wilderness  to  do 
penance,  after  our  Lord's  ascension,  she  desired  to 
know  from  Jesus  how  she  was  to  occupy  herself,  and 
our  Lord  sent  St.  Michael  to  her  with  a  most  beautiful 
cross  which  he  planted  at  the  door  of  her  cell,  that  she 
might  spend  hef  days  in  incessant  meditation  on  the 
Passion.  Once,  when  St.  Gertrude  was  meditating  on 
the  Passion,  she  understood  by  a  light  from  heaven 
that  to  ruminate  on  the  sufferings  of  Christ  is  an  exer- 
cise of  infinitely  greater  efficacy  than  all  others. 
Lastly,  St.  Augustine  says,'*  "  What  kindles,  urges^ 
inflames  and  drives  me  to  love  Thee  more  than  any 
thing  else,  and  to  make  Thee  lovely  above  every  thing 
else,  is  the  most  ignominious  and  bitter  death,  which 
Thou,  0  good  Jesus,  didst  endure  for  the  work  of  our 
redemption.  This  alone,  this  altogether,  easily  claims 
for  itself  all  our  life,  all  our  labour,  all  our  devotion,  and, 
finally,  all  our  love.  This,  I  say,  best  excites,  most 
sweetly  seeks,  most  amply  multiplies  our  devotion." 

With  what  sweet  artifices  of  love  our  Lord  can 
repay  this  devotion  is  most  beautifully  shown  in  the 
life  of  St.  Gertrude.  One  Friday,  when  it  was  now 
near  evening,  she  cast  her  eyes  upon  a  crucifix,  and, 
moved  with  compunction,  she  cried  out,  "  Ah,  my 
sweetest  Creator  and  Lover !  what  and  how  great 
tilings  didst  Thou  bear  for  my  salvation  to-day  !  and  I, 
oh  so  unfaithful !  have  made  no  account  of  them,  and 
the  day  has  gone  by  while  I  have  been  occupied  with 
other  things.  Alas !  I  have  not  devoutly  called  to 
mind  hour  after  hour  that  Thou,  dear  Life  that  giveth 
life  to  all,  for  the  love  of  my  love,  hast  died !"  Tho 
Lord   from  the  crucifix  answered    her :    "  What  you 

*  Conf.  il.  10, 


THE   RICHES   OP   OUR   POVERTY.  161 


neglected  I  have  supplied  for  you ;  for  every  hour  I 
gathered  into  My  heart  what  you  ought  to  have  col- 
lected in  yours;  and  this  has  made  My  heart  swell 
with  such  an  excessive  fulness,  that  I  have  waited  for 
this  hour  with  great  desire  that  this  intention  might 
be  made  to  Me  on  your  part.  And  now  with  this 
intention  which  you  have  just  made,  I  will  offer  lu 
God  My  Father  all  that  I  through  the  day  have  sup- 
plied for  you,  because  without  your  own  intention,  it 
could  not  be  so  salutary  for  you  I"  "  In  this  we  may 
remark,"  says  St.  Gertrude,  "  the  most  faithful  love  of 
Jesus  for  man,  which,  solely  on  account  of  that  inten- 
tion by  which  He  grieves  over  what  he  has  neglected, 
amends  it  all  with  God  the  Father,  and  supplies  for  all 
deficiency  in  such  a  most  lofty  way."  Once  also. 
when  the  saint  was  handling  a  crucifix  very  devoutly, 
she  understood  by  a  supernatural  light,  that  when  any 
one  looked  with  devotion  on  a  crucifix,  he  was  looked 
upon  by  God  with  such  benignant  mercy,  that  his  soul, 
like  a  shining  mirror,  received  into  itself  from  divine 
love  such  an  exceedingly  delectable  image,  that  all 
the  heavenly  hosts  are  delighted  with  it ;  and  for  as 
often  as  he  shall  have  done  this  on  earth,  he  shall  have 
these  images  for  so  many  increases  of  eternal  glory  in 
heaven. 

.Neither  is  this  a  mere  devotion  of  feeling.  "  Ah  !" 
said  St.  Gertrude  once,  "Ah!  my  only  hope,  and  the 
salvation  of  my  soul!  tell  me  how  I  can  do  Thee  at 
least  a  little  good,  then,  for  this  Thy  passion,  to  Thee 
80  bitter,  to  me  so  salutary."  And  this  was  our 
Lord's  answer:  "When  a  man  follows  another's  inte- 
rests in  preference  to  his  own,  he  repays  Me  the  cap- 
•tivity  Avhich  I  endured  in  the  morning,  when  I  was 
L  u* 


162  THE  illCIIES    OF   OUR    POVERTY. 


taken,  pinioned,  and  grievously  tormented  for  men's 
salvation.  When  he  humbly  acknowledges  himself  to 
be  in  fault  about  any  thing,  he  recompenses  Me  for  the 
judgment  which  I  underwent  at  the  first  hour,  when  I 
was  accused  by  false  witnesses,  and  sentenced  to  death. 
When  he  refrains  his  senses  from  things  which  delight 
him,  he  repays  Me  for  the  scourging  which  I  endured 
at  the  third  hour.  When  he  obeys  an  ill-natured  supe- 
rior,' he  relieves  the  pain  of  My  crown  of  thorns. 
When  he  is  the  injured  party,  but  asks  pardon  first,  he 
compensates  for  My  carrying  of  the  cross.  When  he 
almost  goes  beyond  what  he  can  do  in  extending  cha- 
rity to  others,  he  repays  Me  for  that  extension  which  I 
so  sharply  endured  when  distended  on  the  cross  at  the 
sixth  hour.  When,  to  hinder  a  sin,  he  does  not  mind 
sorrow  or  reproach,  he  pays  Me  for  My  death,  which 
I  sufiered  for  the  salvation  of  the  world  at  the  ninth 
hour.  When  he  is  reproached,  and  answers  humbly, 
he,  as  it  were,  takes  Me  down  from  the  cross.  When 
he  prefers  his  neighbour  to  himself,  and  thinks  him 
more  worthy  of  honour,  or  any  other  good  thing,  than 
himself,  he  pays  Me  for  My  burial." 

On  another  occasion  a  similar  revelation  was  made 
to  the  same  saint.  She  said  to  our  Lord,  "  Ah  !  Lord, 
tell  me  how  I  can  laudably  venerate  Thy  Passion."  Ho 
replied :  "  By  more  frequently  revolving  in  your  mind 
that  anxiety  by  which  I,  your  Creator  and  Lord,  when 
in  My  agony,  prayed  the  more  intensely,  and  through 
the  excessive  vehemence  of  My  solicitude,  desire,  and 
love,  I  moistened  the  ground  with  My  Bloody  Sweat. 
Then  you  must  commend  to  Me  all  you  do,  and  all  that 
has  to  be  done  about  you,  in  union  with  that  subjec- 
tion wherewith  I,  for   the  same  reason,  said  to  the- 


THE   RICHES   OF    OUR    POVERTY.  163 


Father,  *  Not  my  will,  but  Thine,  be  done/  So  you 
must  receive  all  prosperous  or  adverse  things  with  the 
same  love  with  which  I  send  them  all  to  you  for  your 
salvation.  You  must  receive  prosperous  things  with 
gratitude,  in  union  with  that  love  by  which  I  am  your 
lover,  and  condescending  to  your  frailty,  I  procure 
them  for  you,  that  by  them  you  may  learn  to  hope  for 
eternal  prosperity.  You  must  receive  adverse  things 
in  union  with  that  love  with  which,  out  of  the  affec- 
tion of  My  paternal  fidelity,  I  send  them  to  you,  that 
by  them  you  may  earn  for  yourself  an  everlasting 
good." 

Our  Lord  said  to  St.  Bridget,  "  I  counsel  you  to  have 
always  two  thoughts  in  your  heart;  first,  the  remem- 
brance of  what  I  have  done  for  you  in  suffering  and 
dying ;  this  thought  Avill  excite  love  of  God  ;  secondly, 
the  consideration  of  My  justice,  and  the  future  judg- 
ment ;  this  will  strike  fear  into  your  soul."  When  lie 
speaks  to  her  of  the  praises  of  good  Christians,  He 
counts,  as  one,  that  the  whole  of  their  thoughts  go  to 
His  Passion.  This,  too,  was  the  great  devotion  of  our 
Blessed  Lady,  as  she  herself  revealed  to  St.  Bridget : 
"  My  thoughts  and  my  heart  were  always  in  the  sepul- 
chre of  my  Son ;"  and  again,  she  bade  the  saint  always 
to  be  considering  His  Passion.  So  successfully  did  St. 
Bridget  train  her  daughter  Catherine  in  this  devotion, 
that  we  read  in  Catherine's  Life  that  every  night, 
before  going  to  bed,  she  spent  four  continuous  hours 
making  genuflections,  and  beating  her  breast,  with 
many  tears,  because  of  the  remembrance  of  Christ's 
Passion,  and  that  all  the  while  she  offered  herself  as  a 
holocaust  to  God.  When  the  Blessed  Angela  of  Foligno 
asked  God  what  she  could  do  to  please  Him  more,  Ho 


164  THE    RICHES    OF    OUR   POVERTY. 


vouchsafed  to  appear  to  her  several  times,  both  sleep- 
ing and  waking,  always  as  crucified  on  the  cross,  and 
lie  told  her  to  look  at  His  wounds,  and  then  showed 
her,  in  a  marvellous  manner,  how  He  had  endured  all 
those  things  for  her  ;  and  lastly,  He  said,  "  "What  then 
can  you  do  for  Me  which  would  be  enough  V  Another 
time,  as  the  Bollandists  relate.  He  appeared  to  her,  and 
said,  *'  Whosoever  wishes  to  find  grace,  let  him  never 
take  his  eyes  from  the  cross,  whether  My  providence 
be  visiting  him  with  sorrow,  or  with  joy/' 

No  wonder,  then,  that  the  same  Angela  should  have 
heard  from  our  Lord  that  these  were  the  benedictions 
which  He  would  multiply  upon  those  who  were  devoted 
to  His  Passion,  and  upon  those  who  imitate  it,  and 
upon  those  who  compassionate  it.  "  Blessed  are  you 
of  My  Father,  who  compassionate  Me,  and  who  are 
sorrowing  with  Me,  and  who,  walking  My  road,  have 
merited  tc  wash  your  stoles  in  My  Blood.  Blessed 
are  you  who  compassionate  Me  crucified  for  you,  and 
afflicted  with  immense  griefs,  that  I  might  satisfy  for 
you,  and  redeem  you  from  immense  and  eternal  pains  ; 
for  compassionating  Me  in  My  poverty,  sorrow,  and 
contempt  borne  for  yourselves,  you  have  been  found 
worthy.  Blessed  are  you  who  shall  be  mindfully  and 
devoutly  compassionate  toward  My  Passion,  which  is 
the  miracle  of  all  ages,  the  salvation  and  life  of  the 
lost,  and  the  sole  refuge  of  sinners ;  for  you  shall 
be  truly  partakers  with  Me  of  the  kingdom,  and  glory, 
and  resurrection  which  I  have  acquired  by  it,  and 
co-heirs  with  Me  for  ever  and  ever.  Blessed  are  you 
of  My  Father,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  truly 
blessed  with  the  benediction  which  I  shall  give  in  the 
last  judgment,  because,  when  I  came  unto  My  own, 


THE  RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY.  165 


you  have  not  repulsed  Me,  as  My  persecutors  did  ;  but, 
by  your  compassion,  have  received  Me,  a  desolate  stran- 
ger, into  the  homo  and  hospitality  of  your  heart.  You 
have  compassionated  Me,  stretched  naked  on  the  cross, 
hungering,  thirsting,  weak,  nailed,  and  dying.  You 
have  willed  to  be  My  companions,  and  in  this  you  have 
truly  fulfilled  the  works  of  mercy.  Therefore  shall 
you  hear  in  that  terrible  hour,  *  Come,  you  blessed  of 
My  Father,  receive  the  kingdom  which  was  prepared 
for  you  before  the  foundation  of  the  world.'  For  I 
was  hungry  on  the  cross,  and,  at  least  by  compassion, 
you  gave  Me  to  eat.  Oh,  happy  you,  truly  happy, 
and  blessed  altogether !  for  if  upon  the  cross  I  prayed 
to  My  Father  with  tears  and  weeping  for  My  cruci- 
fiers  and  torturers,  and  excused  them,  saying,  '  Father, 
forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do,'  what 
shall  I  say  for  you  who  have  compassionated  Me,  and 
been  My  devout  partners,  when,  not  upon  the  cross, 
but  all  blissful  in  My  glory,  I  shall  judge  the  world  V 
Now,  what  do  all  these  examples  and  revelations 
show,  except  that  our  Lord  has  been  pleased  to  give 
us  over  Ilis  Passion  as  if  it  were  really  more  utterly 
and  completely  our  own,  to  do  with  it  what  we  willed, 
than  the  pains  we  ourselves  suffer,  or  the  afflictions  w^g 
have  to  bear  ?  But  to  come  to  the  use  of  the  Passion 
in  intercession,  which  is  our  immediate  subject.  Lan- 
cisius  tells  us,"*  "That  the  offering  of  the  blood  of 
Christ,  or  of  His  Passion  and  death,  to  the  Eternal 
Father,  or  to  Christ  Himself,  in  order  to  appease  Ilim 
for  the  sins  of  the  world,  is  of  boundless  efficacy." 
This  practice  was  taught  by  God  to  St.  Mary  Magda* 

*  ii.  IS. 


166  THE   RICHES    OF    OUR   POVERTY. 


lene  of  Pazzi,  when  lie  vouchsafed  to  complain  to  her 
that  there  were  so  few  in  the  world  who  made  any 
effort  to  appease  His  anger  against  sinners.  In  con- 
sequence of  this,  many  times  in  the  day  she  offered  up 
the  blood  of  Christ  for  sinners  of  all  classes,  and  her 
ordinary  practice  was  daily  to  offer  it  fifty  times  for 
the  living  and  the  dead.  She  did  this  with  so  much 
fervour,  that  God  repeatedly  showed  her  multitudes  of 
souls  whose  conversion  she  had  thus  obtained,  as  well 
as  multitudes  released  from  purgatory.  Once  in  a 
rapture  she  cried  out,  "  As  often  as  the  creature  offers 
this  Blood,  by  which  it  is  redeemed,  it  offers  a  gift 
which  has  no  price,  that  it  can  be  paid  back.  Nay, 
the  gift  is  so  great,  that  the  Eternal  Father  reckons 
Himself  under  obligation  to  His  creature ;  for  He  sees 
it  in  its  misery,  which  His  infinite  goodness  desires  to 
compassionate,  and  compassionating  to  communicate 
Himself  to  it ;  and  thus  this  offering  is  the  cause  of 
His  communicating  now,  and  for  ever  continuing  to 
communicate,  His  goodness  to  His  creature." 

"This  devotion,"  says  Lancisius,  "glorifies  and 
recreates  God  with  the  most  excellent  and  noble  of  all 
offerings.  It  asks,  or  rather  in  a  certain  sense  exacts, 
for  our  past  sins  remission,  preservation  from  sin  in 
time  to  come,  the  conversion  of  sinners  and  heretics, 
and  freedom  from  the  temporal  pains  due  to  sin.  It 
avails,  also,  as  a  thanksgiving  for  all  public  and  per- 
sonal blessings,  for  the  impetration  of  the  Divine 
assistance,  and  for  the  relief  of  the  numberless  neces- 
sities both  of  the  living  and  the  dead." 

3.  Persons  often  wish  to  know  how  much  devotion 
they  ought  to  have  to  our  Blessed  Lad}'-,  and  where 
their  love  ought  to  stop.     They  are  dissatisfied  if  they 


THE   RICHES   OF   OUR,   POVERTY.  167 


are  told  that  they  can  never  have  enough  devotion  to 
her,  that  so  far  as  degree  is  concerned  there  is  no  pos- 
sibility of  excess,  and  that  there  is  no  limit  at  which 
their  love  need  stop.  True  as  this  is,  it  does  not  con- 
tent them.  They  think  it  a  sort  of  pious  exaggeration, 
which  is  true  in  a  sense,  but  no  real  answer  to  their 
question,  or  solution  to  their  difficulty.  But  they 
could  hardly  object,  if  it  was  said  to  them,  You  are  to 
love  Mary  as  much  as  Jesus  loved  her,  and  you  arc  to 
have  as  great  a  devotion  to  her  as  Jesus  wishes  you  to 
have,  and  you  can  have  no  scruple  in  praying  to  Jesus 
for  this  devotion  according  to  His  will.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  know  Jesus,  much  more  to  love  Him,  if  we 
have  not  a  warm  devotion  to  His  ever-blcsscd  Mother. 
Neither  can  we  conceive  of  any  devotion  to  her  more 
sure  to  move  the  Heart  of  Jesus  to  listen  to  our  inter- 
cessions, than  the  offering  to  Him  those  graces  which 
He  Himself  bestowed  upon  her,  those  acts  of  love  by 
which  the  Three  Persons  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity 
adorned  her  as  their  choice  trophy  of  compassion,  and 
those  mysteries  in  which  she  corresponded  to  these 
graces,  and  merited  so  unspeakably.  She  is  so  mixed 
up  with  the  glory  of  God,  that  every  act  of  homage  to 
her  is  a  plain  act  of  love  of  God.  She  is  herself  so 
completely  the  choice  interest  of  Jesus,  that  He  has 
none  on  earth  to  compare  with  the  defence  and  propa- 
gation of  her  honour  !  For,  if  His  Sacred  Heart  be 
mercifully  bent  upon  the  salvation  of  souls.  He  has 
chosen  Mary  as  the  refuge  of  sinners  and  the  advocate 
of  souls.  If  all  God's  works  praise  Him,  and  if  when 
He  looked  upon  the  earth  that  He  had  made  He  was 
moved  to  bless  it  and  to  pronounce  it  very  good,  while 
the    morning    stars  sang  together,    and    the   angels 


168  THE   RICHES   OF    OUR   POVERTY. 


shouted  for  joy,  how  much  more  do  his  own  Avorks 
and  gifts  in  Mary  praise  him  everlastingly,  while  she 
furnishes  an  unending  theme  for  the  songs  of  angels 
and  of  men  !  Oh,  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  we  must  learu 
to  increase  in  our  love  of  Mary.  It  must  be  a  devo- 
tion growing  in  us  like  a  grace,  strengthening  like  a 
habit  of  virtue,  and  waxing  more  and  more  fervent 
and  tender  until  the  hour  when  she  shall  come  to 
help  us  to  die  well,  and  to  pass  safely  through  the  risk' 
of  doom. 

Do  we  think  sufficiently  of  this, — that  devotion  to 
our  Blessed  Lady  is  not  a  thing  which,  like  the  posses- 
sion of  a  book  or  a  rosary,  we  have  once  for  all,  final 
and  complete  ?  It  would  be  no  less  untrue  to  say  that 
when  we  have  received  from  God  the  grace  of  humility, 
we  have  simply  to  hold  fast  what  we  have  got,  and 
never  dream  of  getting  more,  than  to  say  that  devotion 
to  Mary  was  an  ungrowing  thing.  I  repeat,  it  must 
grow  like  a  virtue,  and  strengthen  like  a  habit,  or  it  is 
worth  nothing  at  all.  Nay,  it  is  worse  than  worth 
nothing,  as  a  little  thought  will  show  you.  Love  of 
Mary  is  but  another  form,  and  a  divinely  appointed 
one,  of  love  of  Jesus:  and,  therefore,  if  love  of  II im 
must  grow,  so  also  must  love  of  her.  If  a  person  were 
to  say.  You  must  not  mingle  prayer  to  Mary  with 
prayer  to  Jesus,  he  would  show  that  he  had  no  true 
idea  of  this  devotion,  and  that  he  was  already  on  the 
brink  of  a  very  dangerous  error.  Yet  people  some- 
times thoughtlessly  speak  as  if  devotion  to  the  Mother 
was  a  little  trifle  allowably  cut  oflf  from  devotion  to  the 
Son,  that  it  was  something  surrendered  by  Jesus  to 
Mary  ;  that  Jesus  was  one  thing,  and  Mary  was  an- 
other, and  that  devotion  to  the  two  was  to  bo  divided 


THE   RICHES   OP  OUR  POVERTY.  1G9 


between  them  proportionably  to  their  resj^ective  digni- 
ties, say  a  pound  to  Him,  and  an  ounce  to  her.  If  such 
persons  really  saw  what  they  mean,  which  they  do  not, 
they  would  perceive  that  they  were  talking  impiety. 
Love  of  Mary  is  an  intrinsic  part  of  love  of  Jesus,  and 
to  imagine  that  the  interests  of  the  two  can  be  opposed, 
is  to  show  that  we  do  not  understand  Jesus,  or  the 
devotion  due  to  Ilim.  If  devotion  to  Mary  is  not 
already,  and  in  itself,  devotion  to  Jesus,  then  when  we 
show  devotion  to  her  we  are  consciously  subtracting 
something  from  Him,  and  so  actually  robbing  God, 
which  is  sacrilege.  So  that  when  people  tell  us  to 
keep  within  bounds,  to  moderate  our  devotion,  and  not 
to  go  too  far,  or  to  do  too  much  for  Mary,  they  are 
not,  as  they  fancy,  securing  to  Jesus  His  rightful 
honour,  but  they  are  making  the  horrible  confession 
that  they  themselves  do  take  something  from  Jesus  to 
give  to  Mary,  though  they  are  careful  it  should  not  be 
very  much.  Hoav  dreadful  this  sounds,  when  put  in 
plain  words !  Devotion  to  Mary,  can  get  wrong  in 
kind;  it  can  never  err  in  degree.  If  love  of  Mary  be 
not  love  of  Jesus,  if  devotion  to  Mary  be  not  one  of 
His  own  appointed  devotions  to  Himself,  aye,  and  the 
chief  one  too,  then  my  theology  as  well  as  my  love 
tells  me  I  can  have  no  room  for  Mary  at  all,  for  my 
heart  cannot  adequately  hold  Jesus  as  it  is.  Dearest 
Mother !  how  little  I  should  know  of  you,  if  I  could 
think  of  you  so  dishonourably !  And  what  a  poor, 
low  notion  should  I  have  of  God  Himself!  I  might  as 
well  think  grace  kept  me  from  God,  or  sacraments 
enabled  me  to  do  without  Jesus,  as  imagine  that  you 
did  aught  else  but  gloriously  magnify  His  love  of  mo, 
and  wonderfully  intensify  my  love  of  Him ! 

15 


170  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY. 


Now  see  what  materials  the  life  of  our  Blessed  Lad^ 
presents  to  us,  that  we  may  offer  them  again  to  God ! 
Is  there  any  disclosure  of  His  love  to  a  simple  creature, 
or  to  all  creatures  together,  equal  to  the  grace  of  her 
Immaculate  Conception,  or  of  her  election  to  the  Divine 
Maternity  ?  Whether  we  go  through  her  life  by  the 
sixty-three  mysteries  of  which  it  is  composed,  or  sum 
it  up  in  what  theologians  call  her  three  sanctifications, 
at  her  Immaculate  Conception,  the  moment  of  the  In- 
carnation, and  the  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost  at  Pente- 
cost, it  furnishes  us  with  innumerable  motives  most 
dear  and  persuasive  to  the  Heart  of  Jesus.  Every  act 
is  full  of  His  grace  and  of  Her  heroic  love ;  every  one 
is  more  pleasing  to  Him  than  all  the  heroism  of  His 
saints ;  and  out  of  every  one  of  them,  because  of  the 
supreme  love  that  was  in  her  soul,  God  gains  more 
glory  than  out  of  all  the  services  of  the  three  hierarchies 
of  heaven. 

The  two  devotions,  to  her  Dolours  and  her  Joys, 
might  furnish  illustrations  of  this.  Passing  over  the 
devotion  to  her  dolours  as  better  known,  and  hoping  to 
treat  of  it  in  another  work,  I  will  speak  only  of  the  de- 
votion to  her  joys,  which  may  be  called  the  Franciscan 
devotion.  It  was  the  practice  of  our  own  St.  Thomas 
of  Canterbury,  to  say  the  Ave  Maria  three  times  in  the 
day,  in  honour  of  our  Lady's  seven  earthly  joys,  the 
Annunciation,  the  Visitation,  the  Nativity,  the  Epi- 
phany, the  Finding  in  the  Temple,  the  Resurrection, 
and  the  Ascension.  One  day  our  Blessed  Mother  ap- 
peared to  him,  and  said,  "  Thomas,  your  devotion  is 
most  acceptable  to  me ;  but  why  do  you  only  call  to 
mind  the  joys  which  I  had  on  earth  ?  Henceforth  re- 
member those  also  which  I  now  enjoy  in  heaven ;  for 


THE   RICHES    OF   OUR   POVERTY.  171 


every  one  who  honours  both  these  I  will  console,  exhi- 
larate, and  present  to  my  most  dear  Son  at  the  hour  of 
death."  St.  Thomas  felt  his  heart  filled  with  a  marvel- 
lous exultation,  and  he  cried  out,  "  And  how,  my  sweet- 
est lady,  can  I  do  this,  when  I  do  not  so  much  as  know 
what  these  joys  are  ?''  Our  Blessed  Lady  then  told 
him,  "  that  he  was  to  honour  with  seven  Hail  Maries 
the  following  joys  :  her  joy  first,  because  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity  honours  her  above  all  creatures,  secondly,  be- 
cause her  virginity  has  set  her  above  all  angels  and 
saints,  thirdly,  because  the  great  light  of  her  glory  illu- 
minates the  heavens,  fourthly,  because  all  the  blessed 
worship  her  as  the  Mother  of  God,  fifthly,  because  her 
Son  grants  her  whatever  she  asks,  sixthly,  because  of 
the  grace  given  her  on  earth  and  the  glory  prepared 
for  her  clients  in  heaven,  and  lastly,  because  her  acci- 
dental glory  goes  on  increasing  to  the  day  of  doom." 
St.  Thomas  is  said  to  have  composed  a  sequence, 
"  Gaude  flore  virginali,"  on  these  joys,  which  was  sung 
in  some  churches,  and  which  is  quoted  in  the  Parnas- 
sus Marianus.*  In  the  life  of  St.  Catherine  of  Bologna, 
we  read  that  she  had  a  great  devotion  to  St.  Thomas, 
and  used  to  practise  this  devotion.  Br.  Francis  of  the 
Cross  relates  also  of  the  Blessed  Ranulph,  that  while 
he  was  commemorating  our  Lady's  seven  earthly  joys, 
she  appeared  to  him,  and  revealed  to  him  her  heavenly 
joys,  the  same,  but  in  different  order,  as  those  revealed 
to  St.  Thomas. 

There  is  another  revelation,  to  the  Blessed  Joseph 
Herman,  the  Premonstratensian,  which  shows  how  dear 
to  our  Blessed  Lady  is  this  devotion  to  her  joys.  There 

*  p.  207.  ap.  Lands,  ii.  51. 


172  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY. 


were  at  that  time  constant  instances  of  sacrilegious 
plunder  of  churches,  and  it  often  fell  to  the  lot  of  the 
Blessed  Joseph  to  act  as  sentinel  in  the  church.  This 
caused  him  occasionally  to  intermit  one  of  his  usual 
devotions,  which  consisted  in  reciting  certain  Ilail 
Maries  in  honour  of  Mary's  joys.  She  appeared  to  him, 
and  not  as  usual,  in  youth  and  beauty,  but  old  and 
wrinkled.  He  ventured  to  inquire  the  reason  of  the 
change,  and  she  replied,  "lam  become  old  to  you; 
where  is  now  the  representation  of  my  joys  ?  Where 
those  Hail  Maries  ?  Where  those  exercises  of  piety, 
by  which  I  was  made  young  to  you  and  you  to  me  ? 
Do  not  intermit  my  service  under  the  pretext  of  guard- 
ing the  monastery,  for  I  am  its  best  guardian."  Where- 
upon the  Blessed  Joseph  returned  to  his  usual  exer- 
cises, much  consoled  at  finding  how  much  his  Blessed 
Mother  rejoiced  in  this  devotion  to  her  joys.  St.  Peter 
Damian  also,  in  his  Epistles,*  mentions  a  similar  inci- 
dent. There  was  a  certain  monk  who  every  day  as  he 
passed  in  front  of  our  Lady's  altar,  used  to  salute  her 
with  the  following  antiphon,  "Rejoice,  0  Mother  of 
God,  immaculate  Virgin,  rejoice  with  the  joy  thou  re- 
ceivedst  from  the  angel ;  rejoice  thou  who  didst  bring 
forth  the  brightness  of  eternal  light ;  rejoice,  0  Mother, 
rejoice  Virgin  Mother  of  God,-rejoice  thou  the  sole  Vir- 
gin Mother ;  all  creation  praises  thee ;  Mother  of  Light, 
intercede  for  us."  One  day  as  he  was  crossing  the 
church,  he  heard  a  voice  from  the  altar,  saying, 
"  Thou  announcest  joy  to  me,  and  joy  shall  happen  to 
thyself." 

But  it  is  not  only  to  our  Blessed  Lord  that  we  may 


*  Lib.  3.  Ep.  10. 


THE    RICHES    OF    OUR   TOVERTY.  173 


offer  the  sorrows,  and  the  joys,  the  gifts,  graces,  and 
greatness  of  Ilis  Mother,  but  to  herself  also.  One  day, 
when  St.  Gertrude  was  invoking  her  with  those  words 
of  the  Church  in  the  Salve  Regina,  "  Ah  !  then,  our  ad- 
vocate," she  saw  our  dear  Mother,  as  if  drawn  by  ropes, 
incline  toward  her.  By  this  she  understood  that  as 
often  as  any  one  names  Mary  his  advocate  with  devo- 
tion, her  motherly  tenderness  is  so  much  moved  by  the 
name,  that  she  is  as  it  were  unable  to  prevent  herself 
from  granting  his  prayers.  At  these  words,  "  Those 
thine  eyes  of  mercy,"  our  Lady  gently  touched  her  Son, 
and  turned  Ilim  toward  the  earth,  saying  to  St.  Ger- 
trude, *'  These  (meaning  the  eyes  of  Jesus)  are  those 
most  merciful  eyes  of  mine,  which  I  can  incline  to  the 
salvation  of  all  who  invoke  me,  from  which  they  re- 
ceive the  most  rich  fruit  of  eternal  salvation."  Hence 
she  learned  from  our  Lord  at  least  once  a  day  to  in- 
voke that  most  kind  Mother  with  these  words:  "Eja 
ergo,  Advocata  nostra,  illos  tuos  misericordes  oculos 
ad  nos  converte ;"  and  she  was  assured  by  Him,  that 
she  would  thus  secure  for  herself  no  little  consolation 
in  the  hour  of  death.* 

St.  Bernard  tells  us  to  offer  all  our  offerings  to  God 
through  the  hands  of  Mary  ;  and  though  the  passage  is 
so  well  known,  I  must  not  omit  it  here.f  "Whatever 
you  are  going  to  offer,  remember  to  commend  it  to 
Mary,  that  grace  may  return  to  the  Giver  of  grace 
through  the  same  channel  whereby  it  flowed  into  you. 
Not  that  God  was  unable  to  infuse  grace  as  He  willed, 
without' this  aqueduct,  but  He  chose  to  provide  a  chan- 
nel for  you.     For  your  hands,  perhaps,  are  filled  with 


*  Rev.  lib.  iv.  f  ^^  Aquaeductu. 

15* 


174  THE   RICHES   OF   OJR   POVERTY. 


blood,  or  soiled  with  gifts,  which  you  have  not  alto- 
gether shaken  oflf  from  them :  therefore  that  little  which 
you  are  going  to  offer,  take  care,  if  you  do  not  wish  to 
be  repulsed,  to  give  it  to  Mary  to  offer  with  those  most 
worthy  and  acceptable  hands  of  hers.  For  those  hands 
are  as  whitest  lilies,  and  the  lover  of  lilies  will  never 
reprove  as  not  found  among  the  lilies  what  is  found  in 
Mary's  hands."  And  Lancisius  says  we  should  do  this 
for  two  reasons :  first,  because  as  God  has  willed  that 
wo  should  receive  His  gifts  through  Mary,  so  we  should 
offer  our  gifts  to  Him  through  Her ;  and  secondly,  be- 
cause oblation  through  her  implies  the  great  esteem 
which  God  has  for  her,  which  is  at  once  the  essence  of 
her  interior  veneration,  and  the  origin  of  her  public 
honour. 

4.  Thus  the  beautiful  life  of  the  angels,  God's  eldest- 
born,  may  also  furnish  us  with  most  ample  materials 
for  intercession :  and  our  Lord  seems  to  call  our  atten- 
tion to  it,  when  He  bids  us  pray,  Thy  will  be  done  on 
earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.  Scripture  teaches  us  a  great 
deal  about  the  angels,  their  worship  of  God,  their 
ministries  toward  other  creatures,  their  individual 
characters,  as  in  the  case  of  Michael,  Gabriel,  and 
Raphael,  their  multitude,  and  their  nine  choirs  by 
name.  Some  theologians  have  taught  that  each  angel 
is  a  species  of  himself,  which  would  indeed  open  out 
quite  an  overwhelming  view  of  the  magnificence  of 
God.  Others,  with  more  show  of  reason,  make  twenty- 
seven  species,  three  in  each  choir,  as  there  are  three 
choirs  in  each  hierarchy ;  and  even  this  gives  us  amaz- 
ing ideas  of  the  court  of  heaven,  when  we  remember 
how  hard  it  is  for  us  to  conceive  of  any  further  specific 
division  of  reasonable  creatures  than  into  those  with 


THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY.  175 


bodies,  and  those  purely  spiritual.  Others,  without 
entering  into  the  question  of  species,  tell  us  that  the 
grace  of  each  angel  is  something  quite  different  in 
beauty  and  excellence  from  the  grace  of  his  fellows ; 
and  if  we  follow  out  this  thought  also,  it  will  be  a  joy 
to  us  to  think  of  all  the  perfection  of  sweet  worship 
which  God  is  receiving  in  Heaven  while  we  are  serving 
Him  so  meanly  upon  earth.  Thus,  Sister  Minima  of 
Gesu  Nazzareno,  a  Carmelite  nun  of  Vetralla,  who 
lived  at  the  time  of  the  French  invasion  of  Italy,  and 
spent  a  life  of  incessant  and  wonderful  intercession, 
used  continually  to  offer  to  the  Divine  Majesty  the  love 
of  the  first  choir  of  Seraphim,  in  reparation  for  all  the 
outrages  then  going  on  in  the  world.  So  also  we  are 
supplied  with  fresh  materials  for  intercession  by  the 
various  magnificence  of  worship  which  the  different 
orders  of  saints  are  at  this  hour,  and  every  hour,  offer- 
ing to  God  in  heaven,  a  worship  and  a  glory  which  is 
increasing  constantly  as  fresh  souls  from  earth  or  pur- 
gatory attain  to  bliss.  And  in  all  this  we  satisfy  our 
love,  while  we  are  with  gentle  efficacy  influencing  the 
Sacred  Heart  to  grant  our  prayers. 

5.  Then,  again,  if  we  descend  to  earth,  even  there  we 
find  sweet  bundles  of  fragrant  incense  wherewith  to 
appease  the  just  anger  of  God,  and  to  win  a  loving 
answer  to  our  prayers.  All  that  the  saints  have  ever 
done  in  past  centuries,  the  wonders  of  Joseph's  hidden 
sanctity,  the  solitary  austerities  of  the  Baptist,  every 
weary  step  the  apostles  took  along  the  Roman  roads, 
every  pang  the  martyrs  suffered ;  or  farther  back  into 
the  Old  Testament  times,  the  raptures  of  the  prophets, 
the  fidelity  of  the  Machabees,  the  marvels  of  David'a 
godlike  heart,  the  fights  of  Josue,  the  meekness  of 


URITEESITTj 


176  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR  POVERTY. 


Moses,  the  purity  of  Joseph,  the  simplicity  of  J.icob, 
the  meditations  of  Isaac,  the  faith  of  Abraham,  tho 
priesthood  of  Melchisedeck,  the  building  of  Noe.  the 
blood  of  Abel,  and  the  long  nights  and  toilsome  days 
of  Adam's  nine  hundred  years  of  diligent,  heroic,  and 
accepted  penance  ;  all  these  we  may  offer  humbly  and 
confidently,  as  if  the  sweetness  and  freshness  of  yester- 
day were  upon  them.  Neither  can  we  have  a  method 
of  prayer  more  in  harmony  with  the  mind  of  the 
Church  ;  for  it  is  almost  the  commonest  form  of  her 
collects  to  ask  God  for  mercies  now,  because  of  past 
mercies  which  He  has  vouchsafed  to  Ilis  saints  and 
people.  But  there  is  the  present,  as  well  as  the  past. 
Earth  brings  forth  its  glad  harvest  for  God's  glory  at 
every  hour.  Out  upon  its  hills,  and  plains,  and  valleys 
this  day,  in  the  convents  and  in  the  world,  from  tho 
Pope  in  his  palace  to  the  converted  Indian  in  his  hut, 
how  many  supernatural  acts  are  rising  up  to  God,  how- 
many  acts  of  faith,  breathings  of  hope,  sighs  of  love 
arid  holy  sorrow,  how  many  penances,  how  much  con- 
formity in  pain  to  Ilis  most  blessed  Will !  How  many 
masses  are  being  said,  how  many  communions  made, 
absolutions  given.  Extreme  Unctions  received,  and 
each  hour  how  many  dear  though  silent  victories  are 
the  waters  of  baptism  achieving  for  the  glory  of  the 
ever-blessed  Trinity  !  All  these  belong  to  us  ;  all  these 
may  we  gather  at  our  will  and  put  them  on  the  live 
coals  of  our  devotion  in  the  thuribles  of  our  hearts, 
and  offer  incense  to  the  Most  High.  Nay,  the  inferior 
creatures  are  all  praising  God,  by  answering  the  end  of 
their  creation :  the  beasts  of  the  field,  the  birds  of  the 
air,  and  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  the  woods  and  flowers, 
the  winds  and  dews ;  and  these,  as  they  strike  upon 


THE   RICHES   OF  OUR  POVERTY.  177 


our  eye  or  ear,  we  can  offer  in  grateful  love  to  the 
Majesty  of  God.  There  are,  too,  God's  own  works,  from 
the  creation  of  the  world  to  the  present  hour  of  His 
manifold  Providence;  His  forbearance  with  sin,  or 
His  judgments  on  it;  His  voices,  and  visions,  and 
revelations;  His  interpretations  in  behalf  of  His 
Church ;  His  visible  protection  of  His  ark  in  old 
times,  and  of  the  Holy  See  in  our  own.  By  all  these 
He  is  willing  to  be  entreated.  All  these  He  gives  us 
as  weapons  for  the  armoury  of  prayer.  The  inventive 
love  of  the  saints  and  holy  men  has  gone  even  further 
than  this.  They  have  offered  to  God  in  the  fervour  of 
thojr  hearts  all  the  homage  that  all  possible  creatures 
could  offer  to  Him ;  that  so  they  might  come,  or 
rather  might  seem  to  come,  as  near  to  His  infinity  as 
possible.  They  have  dared  to  conceive  of  those  three 
abysses,  the  power  of  the  Father,  the  wisdom  of  the 
Son,  and  the  love  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  as  pouring  forth 
in  order  and  beauty  all  possible  worlds,  and  have 
offered  up  these  countless  systems  as  an  act  of  love 
and  a  plea  of  intercession.  They  have  offered  up  too 
the  manifold  and  unknown  sufferings  of  purgatory, 
which  they  one  day  expect  themselves  to  feel,  as  beau- 
tiful in  their  perfections,  holy  in  their  dread  functions, 
and  further  sanctified  by  contact  with  the  Holy  Souls, 
and  so  as  a  sweet  oblation  to  the  justice  and  purity  of 
God. 

6.  But  holy  men  have  gone  further  even  than 
this.  "All  things  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's." 
They  have  felt  how  unequal  to  the  majesty  of  God 
are  all  the  praises  of  creatures ;  and  therefore,  when 
they  have  desired  to  implore  of  God  some  more  than 
common  grace,  they  have  offered  to  Him  His  own 
M 


178  THE   RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY. 


infinite  perfections,  and  the  glory  lie  receives  fron 
those  attributes  which  are  Himself.  They  havo 
pleaded  by  the  Eternal  Generation  of  the  Son,  and 
by  the  Double  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  They 
have  offered  to  God  the  knowledge  and  love  whereby 
He  knows  and  loves  Himself,  and  the  incommunicable 
complacency  of  the  Three  Divine  Persons  in  Each 
Other.  And  they  have  found,  not  only  an  answer 
to  their  prayers,  but  an  increase  of  divine  love  in 
their  souls,  which  they  would  hardly  have  conceived 
to  be  possible.  They  have  found  iae  technical  terms 
of  dogmas  and  definitions  to  be,  not  mere  words  and 
sounds,  but  flames  from  very  heaven. 

It  is  difficult  to  keep  to  our  subject,  that  of  interces- 
sion, when  we  are  quoting  so  many  things  which  run 
away  with  us  and  cause  us  to  speak  of  love.  But  let 
us  review  all  these  riches  of  our  poverty,  all  these  our 
possessions  in  Christ,  and  see  if  we  have  not  indeed  an 
abundance  of  sacrifices  with  which  to  approach  God  in 
continual  and  fervent  intercessions.  Through  what 
fields  and  fields  of  delightful  meditation  do  they  not 
lead  us  all  the  while  1  What  liberty  of  spirit  they  im- 
part to  us !  How  easy  it  is  to  make  this  a  service  of 
love,  where  all  so  breathes  of  love  that  it  almost  causes 
us  to  forget  our  intercession  ! 

Take  the  case  of  invalids,  of  persons,  not  so  much 
suffering  from  the  pain  of  serious  illness,  as  beneath 
the  continual  pressure  of  ailing  health.  They,  too,  de- 
sire to  devote  themselves  to  the  glory  of  God,  to  the  in- 
terests of  Jesus,  and  to  the  saving  of  souls  ;  yet  they 
can  do  nothing,  so  far  as  external  activity  is  concerned, 
neither  perhaps  have  they  the  means  to  help  good 
works  with  alms.     Direct  intercession,  direct  asking 


THE   RICHES   OP   OUR   POVERTY.  179 


of  God  in  so  many  words  for  grace  for  such  and  such 
persons,  is  soon  exhausted.  There  is  nothing  in  it  to  be- 
guile the  weariness  of  infirm  health,  or  to  lead  the  spi- 
rit on.  But  to  wander  through  these  treasuries  of  holy 
offerings,  countless,  various  and  beautiful  as  they  are,  is 
a  placid  occupation  of  the  spirit.  It  recreates  the  flag- 
ging devotion  ;  and  thus  enables  us  to  keep  up  and  per- 
petuate our  affectionate  and  reverential  intercourse  with 
God,  while  we  are  in  reality  doing  great  and  solid  work 
for  His  glory  and  the  advancement  of  His  Church. 
And  not  to  invalids  only,  but  to  all,  it  is  an  easy,  be- 
cause interesting  practice  of  the  presence  of  God,  in- 
teresting to  the  affections  as  well  as  to  the  mind.  The 
more  our  ideas  about  God  are  multiplied,  the  more  va- 
rious our  thoughts,  and  images,  and  recollections  of 
things  which  have  to  do  with  Iliin,  of  course  the  more 
our  minds  and  hearts  are  engrossed  with  Him,  and  so 
it  becomes  easier  to  live  all  day  in  His  sensible  pre- 
sence. And  is  not  the  practice  of  the  presence  of  God 
one  half  of  Holiness  ?  Neither  should  we  omit  to  men- 
tion the  unworldly  temper  which  this  method  of  inter- 
cession would  produce  in  us.  The  world's  strong  point 
is  its  multiplicity.  Its  objects  of  interest  are  so  nu- 
merous. It  addresses  so  many  sides  of  our  nature.  It 
lays  hold  of  us  in  such  a  variety  of  ways.  Whereas, 
religion  is  to  many  people  so  intellectually  uninterest- 
ing, so  dry  and  barren,  so  uniform  and  monotonous. 
They  know  so  little  about  it ;  and  they  cannot  always 
keep  to  one  thing.  And  thus  spirituality  is  at  a  dis- 
advantage. It  is  true  that  there  is  a  very  lofty  and 
sublime  state  of  the  soul  in  contemplation  where  the 
bare  thought  of  God  is  its  perfection.  But  these  things 
are  not  for  us.     We,  and  such  as  we,  need  all  the  in- 


180  THE  RICHES   OF   OUR   POVERTY. 


teresfc  whicli  variety  and  beauty  can  give  to  devotion  ; 
and  even  then  we  tire  of  it  before  long.  And  thus  tho 
more  interesting  and  various  is  our  religious  know- 
ledge, the  more  easy  do  we  find  it  to  cast  out  of  our 
souls  the  miserable  spirit  of  the  world,  and  to  become 
engrossed  with  the  interests  of  Jesus. 

And  what  consolation  too  is  there  not  in  all  these 
riches  of  our  poverty,  when  low  spirits  are  upon  us,  or 
an  over-depressing  sense  of  sin,  or  the  thwartings  of 
men,  or  the  failure  of  good  works,  or  the  unsatisfacto- 
riness  of  life  and  of  the  world  ?  Downcast  as  we  may 
be,  after  all,  we  want  nothing  so  much  as  that  God 
should  be  loved,  and  Jesus  have  His  own.  And  so 
weary  with  work  or  foiled  with  disappointment,  when 
the  dark  night  is  closing  in,  bringing  with  it  to  our 
sick  spirits  a  sense  of  imprisonment,  and  when  the  dis- 
mal rain  curtains  us  round,  and  we  fret  to  be  at  liberty 
and  at  large,  there  is  the  very  freedom  of  a  sovereign 
to  a  soul  traversing  this  boundless  empire  of  God  and 
Jesus,  of  Mary,  angels,  saints,  men,  and  the  blameless 
creatures,  and  rejoicing  in  that  never-ceasing  sacrifice 
of  praise  which  is  rising  up  from  every  nook  and  cor- 
ner of  creation  to  the  dear  Majesty  of  our  most  loving 
God  and  Father. 


OIIAPTKR   Vt. 


iD;iiitiitg  IToiug. 


OD  is  the  centre  of  every  thing,  and 
the  value  of  every  thing.  As  every 
thing  comes  from  Ilim,  so  every 
thing  returns  to  Ilim.  Even  the  re- 
bellious creature,  which  refuses  to 
repose  in  the  embraces  of  His  love, 
falls  into  the  hands  of  His  justice 
Nothing  is  worth  any  thing,  except 
in  so  far  as  God  chooses  to  have  to 
do  with  it.  The  enlightened  mind  or  the 
loving  heart  can  respect  nothing,  except 
under  its  relation,  true  or  supposed,  to 
Almighty  God.  There  is  but  one  view 
of  things  which  is  true,  and  that  is  God's 
view  of  them.  It  seems  hardly  worth  while 
to  say  such  very  obvious  things.  Yet  the  mi- 
sery is  that  even  Catholics  find  a  difficulty 
in  getting  these  truths  into  their  minds,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  further  difficulty  of  acting  upon  them 
when  received.  Many  men  are  shocked  at  the  external 
signs  of  oblivion  of  God,  which  are  so  distressingly  ob- 
vious in  an  heretical  country.  And  yet  they  them- 
selves in  their  own  subject-matter  do  not  really  lot  God 
16  181 


1S2  MfNTlNQ    MONEY. 


have  his  own.  Look  how  Catholics  act  when  mixecj 
up  with  a  political  party,  or  a  scientific  institute,  or 
aristocratical  society,  and  you  will  see  at  once  conduct 
which  implicitly  at  least,  supposes  that  God  is  very 
well  in  His  own  place,  but  that  he  has  limits,  and  that 
to  intrude  Him,  and  religious  considerations  which 
have  to  do  with  Ilim,  into  certain  discussions,  ac- 
tions, or  interests,  is  either  an  impertinence  or  a  nar- 
row-mindedness, or  at  least  a  tolerated  idiosyncrasy. 
Many  good  people,  from  the  best  of  motives,  fall  into 
this,  and  they  deem  they  are  going  to  win  God  some 
glory,  and  His  Church  some  prosperity,  from  thus 
playing  the  civil  to  the  world  and  its  principles.  Alas  I 
they  wake  up  one  day  and  find  that,  while  their  own 
devotion  has  become  dull,  and  their  prayers  distracted, 
and  their  piety  merely  exterior,  and  their  principles 
insensibly  lowered  to  the  level  around  them,  they  have 
not  drawn  to  God  one  single  soul,  or  in  any  one  nook 
of  the  world  increased  the  love  of  our  dear  Lord.  With 
how  many  is  this  the  case,  who  are  thought  to  be  inva- 
luable men  and  pillars  of  the  Church,  not  because  they 
are  supernatural  men  and  in  God's  secrets,  but  because 
they  have  the  world's  ear,  and  represent  its  influential 
classes  !  And  their  prudence  is  successful !  But  in  what 
does  it  succeed?  Does  anybody  love  Jesus  better?  Is 
there  a  poor  soul  saved  somewhere  ?  Oh  no  I  but  the 
Ministry  of  the  day  have  been  got  to  drop  a  condescend- 
ing word  about  the  Pope,  or  a  neutral  member  has  asked 
a  question  about  some  little  something  in  the  House  of 
Commons  ;  which  is  first  asked,  then  noticed  in  the  next 
day's  paper,  and  finally  ends  in  nothing!  But,  then, 
any  thing  like  unrespectability  has  been  so  completely 
avoided  !     Well,  well!  God  be  praised,  and  these  kind 


MINTING   MONEY.  183 


patrons  of  God  be  praised  as  well.  Only  sometimes  we 
want  something  more  than  to  be  respectable.  Let  us 
look  to  our  prudence.  It  will  be  the  best  thing  about 
us,  if  it  be  supernatural.  But  not  else.  In  this  country, 
and  at  this  time,  men  must  have  a  very  clear  view  of 
God,  else  they  are  quite  sure  in  a  hundred  ways  not  to 
let  Ilim  have  His  own. 

It  is  very  obvious  to  say  that  if  we  always  knew 
what  God  wished,  it  would  be  a  great  help  to  us  in 
serving  Ilim.  We  should  not  surely  throw  ourselves 
into  open  rebellion  against  the  express  will  of  God. 
Yet  practically,  in  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  our 
actions,  we  do  know  this;  and  in  all  of  them,  if  we  do 
not  know  what  He  would  have  us  do,  we  know  at  least 
the  motive  from  which  He  would  have  us  act,  when 
ever  we  act  at  all.  "  Whatever  you  do,  whether  you 
eat  or  drink,  or  whatever  you  do,  do  all  for  the  glory 
of  God."  St.  John  tells  us  that  God  is  charity.  Thus 
in  the  whole  of  the  almost  infinite  and  complicated 
system  in  which  we  live,  God  has  contrived  all  things, 
quite  wonderfully,  for  these  two  ends,  if  they  might 
not  more  properly  be  called  one  end  than  two  ;  He  has 
arranged  every  thing,  first,  so  that  He  may  be  loved ; 
and  secondly,  so  as  to  enable  us  to  love  Him.  If  wc 
may  dare  thus  to  speak  of  the  Almighty,  He  seems  to 
have  no  other  end  in  view  at  all :  and  He  manages 
things  by  artifices  of  almighty  power  in  order  to  bring 
this  about.  This  is  His  rule  by  which  he  has  done 
every  thing.  The  hearts  of  His  creatures  are  the  only 
treasures  He  will  condescend  to  accept  from  His  own 
creation. 

It  is  remarkable,  when  we  come  to  think  of  it,  that 
neither  angels  nor   men  were  created  in  a  state   of 


184  MINTING   MONEY. 


nature,  but  in  a  state  of  grace ;  and  were  thus  able  at 
once  to  love  God,  and  to  merit  eternal  life,  which  is 
nothing  else  than  eternal  society  with  Ilim.  Grace 
was  a  better  position  than  nature  for  loving  God.  By 
grace  He  could  communicate  Himself  to  us.  By  it 
He  at  once  got  more  love  from  us,  and  made  us  more 
able  to  love  Him.  Then  came  redemption,  and  the 
same  end  is  visible  there.  He  could  have  forgiven  sin 
without  the  Incarnation ;  but  it  was  the  most  loving 
way,  and  more  sweetly  constrained  us  to  love  Him. 
When  our  dear  Lord  came,  one  tear  was  enough  to 
redeem  countless  worlds ;  but  blood  was  more  loving. 
Then  one  drop  of  blood  was  enough,  but  to  shed  it  all, 
and  to  shed  it  variously,  in  the  garden,  at  the  pillar, 
during  the  way  of  the  cross,  and  on  Calvary,  was  more 
loving,  more  likely  to  call  out  men's  love.  When 
Jesus  went,  and  the  work  of  redemption  was  to  go  on 
operating  through  all  ages,  common  grace  would  have 
done ;  but  that  Jesus  should  come  back  to  us  invisibly 
in  the  transcending  wonder  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament 
was  more  loving,  more  personal,  and  more  constraining 
to  our  affections.  We  might  be  eternally  happy  in  a 
sinless  immortality,  spent  in  a  world  of  beautified 
nature ;  but  His  delight  is  to  be  with  the  children  of 
men,  and  that  they  should  be  with  Him  to  all  eternity, 
and  that  nothing  short  of  His  own  dear  and  adorable 
Self  should  be  their  enjoyment.  You  see  every  thing 
our  Heavenly  Father  does  is  for  love.  He  vouchsafes 
to  long  for  our  love.  He  makes  us  so  that  we  can  only 
be  happy  in  loving  Him  ;  and  then,  looking  compas- 
sionately on  our  intense  desire  to  love  Him  more,  Ho 
does  all  that  we  will  let  Him  do  to  enable  us  to  love 
Him  more  and  more  worthily  and  fervently.     Thus  all 


MINTING   MONEY.  185 


is  love  from  first  to  last :  there  is  no  other  measure ; 
there  is  no  other  principle. 

Oh,  that  we  had  the  hearts  to  take  this  in,  and  all 
that  it  involves !  If  we  are  to  come  to  weights  and 
measures  with  Infinite  Goodness,  surely  Ilis  love  of  us 
should  be  our  measure  of  love  of  Ilim,  a  measure  to 
which  we  must  never  cease  to  aspire,  though  we  shall 
never  attain  it.  If  our  hearts  are  not  at  once  touched, 
melted,  and  carried  away  by  the  very  thought  and 
name  of  God,  reflection  must  at  least  convince  us  that 
all  religion  is  a  matter  of  love,  and  that  without  some 
love  we  can  never  see  God.  All  through,  God  takes 
the  lower  place  in  His  own  world ;  He  stoops  to  plead 
when  we  should  expect  Him  to  command :  He  makes 
as  though  we  were  laying  Him  under  an  obligation 
who  created  us  out  of  nothing,  and  from  whom  alone 
all  that  is  good  proceeds.  May  I  say  it?  He  makes 
love  to  us,  and  woos  our  souls  with  blandishments 
which  no  churlishness  of  ours  seems  ever  to  repel.  He 
is  continually  giving  way,  continually  waiving  His 
rights,  putting  Himself  in  our  position  and  us  in  Ills. 
The  Incarnation  is  itself  a  figure  of  the  whole  conduct 
of  the  Creator  to  His  unworthy  creatures.  The  mys- 
tery of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is  simply  in  harmony 
with  the  way  and  conduct  of  the  Almighty  in  His  own 
world.  And,  alas !  we  are  not  touched !  We  are  as 
hard,  dry,  ungracious,  mean,  as  ever !  As  though  it 
were  some  great  honour  to  us  to  show  off  the  might  of 
our  free  will,  and  that  while  God  was  contriving  every 
thing  to  get  love  from  us,  we  could  manage,  in  spite  of 
Him,  to  make  religion  as  nearly  as  possible  a  shop- 
keeper's bargain,  or  a  convict's  grudging  obedience. 
Oh,  till  we  got  to  know  our  own  hearts,  hell  might 

16* 


186  MINTING    MONEY. 


have  seemed  a  severity ;  but  truly  a  little  self-know- 
ledge shows  that  it  is  almost  the  chiefest,  because  the 
most  indispensable,  of  the  Divine  Mercies. 

Well  might  St.  Francis  run  about  the  woods  in  the 
valley  of  Spoleto,  exclaiming,  *'  Oh,  God  not  known 
and  not  loved  I"  AYell  might  St.  Bruno  cause  the 
mountain  solitudes  to  echo  with  his  one  life-long  cry, 
"  Oh,  Goodness !  Goodness  !  Goodness  V  Well  might 
our  dearest  Lord  appear  to  St.  Gertrude,  pale,  weary, 
bleeding  and  dirt-stained,  and  say,  "  Open  your  heart, 
my  daughter,  for  I  want  to  go  in  and  lie  down ;  I  am 
weary  of  these  days  of  sin  I" 

But  at  last,  as  we  grow  in  the  knowledge  of  God,  we 
grow  in  His  love  also.  We  come  at  length  to  feel  pain 
and  anguish  because  we  do  not  love  our  Blessed  God 
more,  and  because  others  do  not  love  Him  also.  Here 
too  He  is  ready  to  meet  us.  He  not  only  arranges 
all  things  so  as  to  get  love,  but  with  this  He  arranges 
60  as  to  enable  us  to  love  Him  in  all  manner  of  super- 
natural ways.  I  said  in  the  last  chapter  that  He  did 
this  in  two  ways  more  especially ;  first.  He  gives  us  all 
that  is  His,  and  lets  us  offer  it  to  Him  again  as  if  it 
were  all  our  own  ;  these  are  the  riches  of  our  poverty 
which  we  then  considered.  Secondly,  He  magnifies 
our  own  poor  actions  and  gives  them  an  immense  value 
by  uniting  them  to  His,  and  enabling  us  to  do  them 
from  supernatural  motives,  and  in  union  with  Him.  It 
is  this  last  method  of  putting  it  in  our  power  to  love 
Him  more  worthily  that  we  are  to  consider  now.  We 
are  to  meditate  on  the  treasure  of  our  common  actions, 
and  on  the  Catholic  devotion  of  perpetually  offering 
them  up  to  God  united  with  the  actions  of  Jesus. 
This  is  the  second  manner  in  which  God  mercifully 


MINTING    MONEY.  187 


rescues  us  from  the  littleness  and  worthlessness  of  our 
own  selves.  There  is  not  a  single  thing  we  do  all  the 
day  long,  which  may  not,  and  that  quite  easily,  be 
made  to  advance  the  glory  of  God,  the  interests  of 
Jesus,  and  the  Salvation  of  souls.  No  matter  how 
completely  the  world  may  have  set  its  seal  upon  it,  nor 
how  utterly  it  seems  to  be  an  affiiir  of  temporal  busi- 
ness, or  a  trivial  concern  belonging  only  to  the  misery 
of  human  life.  The  heavenly  motive  enters  into  it; 
that  moment  it  is  all  filled  with  God,  and  becomes  a 
jewel  of  almost  infinite  price,  with  which  the  Divine 
Majesty  condescends  to  be  well  pleased.  The  hours 
pass,  one  following  the  other ;  each  one  is  filled  with 
actions  belonging  to  our  state.  "We  write,  or  read,  or 
keep  accounts,  or  buy,  or  sell,  or  speak,  or  think,  or 
suffer ;  and  all  the  w^iile,  if  Ave  choose  it,  we  are  mint- 
ing money,  heavenly  money  which  can  merit  eternal 
life.  There  needs  but  the  act  or  intention  of  oblation, 
by  which  our  actions  touch  those  of  God  made  Man,  to 
confer  this  value  upon  every  single  thing  we  do. 

This  devotion  of  saying  mass,  as  it  were,  with  our 
actions  all  day  long  is  peculiarly  Catholic.  I  suppose 
it  strikes  converts  as  much  as  any  thing  else  in  the 
devotional  system  of  the  Church  ;  and  it  is  surely 
another  most  touching  instance  of  the  way  in  which 
God  contrives  every  thing  for  love.  Pious  people  some- 
times complain  of  the  distractions  of  worldly  occupa* 
tions  ;  they  think  it  will  be  the  peculiar  business  of 
heaven  to  worship  God  with  an  unintermitting  wor- 
ship ;  in  fact,  they  complain  that  earth  is  not  heaven. 
Yet  surely,  in  this  respect  at  least,  it  need  not  be  so 
very  unlike  it.  If  ours  is  a  service  of  love,  every  one 
of  these  so-called  distractions  is  in  truth  a  precious 


188  MINTING    MONEY. 


oblation.  Evei-}'^  action  is  Host  and  Incense  and  Song 
and  Sacrifice  all  the  day  long,  if  we  choose  that  it 
should  be  so  ourselves.  Now,  if  we  have  really  at 
heart  God's  glory,  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the 
saving  of  souls,  if  we  would  fiiin  be  occupied  in  these 
things  at  all  hours,  we  must  not  neglect  to  profit  by 
this  treasure  of  our  common  actions. 

The  spirit  of  oblation,  I  have  said,  is  essentially 
Catholic.  It  springs  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Mass, 
which  is  the  centre  and  fountain  of  all  true  devotion. 
It  belongs  to  a  religion  of  sacrifice,  such  as  the  Gospel 
is  in  every  way.  Our  dear  Lord  redeemed  us  by  the 
oblation  and  sacrifice  of  Ilinjself ;  and  hence  oblation 
and  sacrifice  enter  into  every  minutest  detail  of  our 
religion.  No  wonder  then  that  they  should  give  a 
shape  and  form,  a  genius  and  spirit,  to  Catholic  devo- 
tion. This  is  so  obvious,  it  need  not  be  dwelt  upon. 
But  what  I  want  you  to  observe  is  that  here  also  is 
the  same  contrivance  for  love,  the  same  sweet  paternal 
spirit,  which  God  vouchsafes  to  show  us  everywhere. 
It  would  seem  as  if  prayer  was  a  privilege  which  could 
not  possibly  be  exceeded  even  by  infinite  compassion, 
and  that  a  creature  could  look  for  nothing  more  than 
the  privilege  of  making  his  wants  known  to  his  merci- 
ful Creator.  Yet  oblation  is  something  beyond  prayer. 
In  prayer  we  receive  from  God ;  in  oblation  it  is  IIo 
who  vouchsafes  to  receive,  and  we  are  allowed  to  give. 
To  make  presents  is  not  only  a  sign  of  love,  but  of 
some  sort  of  equality :  and  thus  from  oblation  there 
springs  a  more  familiar,  tender,  and  affectionate  fami- 
liarity with  God  than  could  arise  from  petition  only. 
The  childlike  freedom  of  the  saints  comes  in  great 
measure  from  this  spirit  of  oblation. 


MINTING   MONEY.  189 


1.  Let  us  now  see  what  the  practices  of  the  saints 
have  been  with  regard  to  the  oblation  of  their  own 
daily  actions  to  God.  We  must  remember  throughout 
that  our  position  is  this.  We  are  longing  for  God's 
glory,  for  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  for  the  good  of 
souls.  We  see  an  overwhelming  amount  of  work  to  be 
done,  little  time  to  do  it  in,  and  small  means  to  do  it 
with.  We  must  be  covetous  of  all  we  have,  greedy  of 
grace,  and  greedy  of  every  thing  which  grace  can  make 
its  own.  Our  dear  Lord !  it  is  for  Him  we  are  work- 
ing, so  we  must  work  hard,  and  always.  We  have 
something  to  do,  and  we  do  it,  and  there  the  action 
stops.  But  if  we  do  the  same  thing  with  devout  atten- 
tion, offering  it  to  Jesus  in  union  with  something  simi- 
lar which  He  condescended  to  do  on  earth,  it  becomes 
a  sweet  sacrifice  of  immense  power  with  God.  What 
miser  but  would  be  minting  money  all  the  day  if  he 
could?  Yet  this  is  just  what  we  can  do,  and,  through 
the  stupendous  mystery  of  the  Incarnation,  in  a  most 
real  way,  and  effectual  to  the  obtaining  of  eternal 
life. 

St.  Thomas  teaches  that  the  work  of  a  just  man 
becomes  the  more  meritorious  in  proportion  to  the 
excellence  of  the  supernatural  motive  for  which  the 
work  is  done,  and  that  as  love,  the  love  of  benevolence, 
as  it  is  called,  is  more  excellent  than  any  other,  so 
works  done  for  that  motive  are  the  most  meritorious 
of  all.  Furthermore  he  teaches,  as  I  mentioned  in 
a  previous  chapter,  that  works  done  to  God  as  our 
Father,  are  more  meritorious  than  those  done  for  Him 
as  our  Creator,  because  the  motive  is  more  excellent. 
Rodriguez  tells  us  that  God  revealed  to  St.  Mechtildia 
that  U  was  most  pleasing  to  Him  that  we  should  offer 


190  MINTING   MONEY. 


Ilim  all  our  actions  in  union  with  those  of  Christ,  and 
our  Lord  Himself  taught  the  same  to  St.  Gertrude, 
and  also  to  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi.  Thus  St. 
Thomas  says*  that  "  Christ  is  signified  by  the  double 
altar  of  holocausts  and  incense ;  because  by  Ilim  we 
ought  to  offer  to  God  all  the  works  of  virtue  by  which 
we  afflict  our  flesh  ;  and  these  are  offered  on  the  altar 
of  holocausts  ;  and  that  we  should  offer  to  Him  also  all 
those  which  we  do  with  a  greater  perfection  of  mind, 
by  the  spiritual  desires  of  the  perfect ;  and  these  are 
offered  on  the  altar  of  incense."  Thus,  St.  Ignatius 
in  his  rule  says,  "  that  all  his  children  are  to  have  a 
right  intention,  not  only  as  to  their  state  of  life,  but  as 
to  all  details,  always  in  all  of  them  seeking  to  act  only 
so  as  to  please  the  Divine  Goodness  for  His  own  sake ;" 
and  St.  Theresa  says,  "  That  every  one  will  gain  the 
desired  end  of  his  prayers  more  efficaciously,  if  he  will 
but  offer  his  actions  to  the  Eternal  Father  in  union 
with  the  merits  of  our  Lord."  And  Orlandini  tells  us 
of  Father  Peter  Faber,  "That  he  took  upon  himself 
the  patronage  of  the  dead  so  thoroughly  that  he  wished 
all  his  brothers  so  to  offer  their  ordinary  actions  that 
when  hindered  by  so  many  cares,  and  distracted  by  so 
many  external  occupations,  they  could  not  pray  with 
their  voices,  their  very  actions  might  rise  up  as  silent 
petitions  for  the  Holy  Souls."  In  order  to  avoid  weari- 
ness and  the  straining  of  the  mind,  Lancisius  recom- 
mends that  this  offering  should  be  made  by  single 
words,  either,  "I  will,  or  I  offer,  or  I  do  or  say  this, — 
for  Thy  sake,  my  heavenly  Father !"  and  that  we  may 
either  keep  to  the  same  words  or  vary  them,  according 

*  i.  2.  q.  102. 


MINTING   MONEY.  191 


as  we  find  our  devotion  is  most  excited.  This  prayer 
of  practical  oblation  is,  he  says,  in  itself  more  excellent 
and  meritorious  even  than  the  contemplation  of  the 
prayer  of  quiet ;  and  for  this  reason.  In  both,  whether 
oblation  or  contemplation,  the  formal  object  is  the 
same,  God  loved  simply  for  His  own  sake,  but  in  obla- 
tion a  further  matter  is  added,  the  work  or  word  done 
or  said  for  God.  Hence  it  is  that  theologians  teach 
that  the  mixed  life  is  more  perfect  than  that  which  is 
purely  contemplative.* 

The  same  spiritual  writer  recommends  also  that  we 
should  ofier  to  God  the  particular  circumstances  of  our 
actions,  as  well  as  the  actions  themselves.  For  exam- 
ple, on  rising  in  the  morning,  he  would  have  us  say, 
"  0  most  holy  and  beloved  Father,  I  now  desire  to  rise 
because  of  Thee,  and  in  union  with  the  merits,  and 
all  the  works  of  my  dear  Lord,  without  delay,  so  as 
promptly  to  obey  the  call  of  holy  obedience,  and  to 
dress  myself  with  all  modesty,  and  as  quickly  as  I  can, 
that  I  may  begin  all  the  sooner  to  work  for  thy  glory.'' 
And  he  says  that  this  variation  of  the  material  circum- 
stances of  our  actions  at  once  increases  the  merit  of 
the  offering,  and  prevents  weariness  and  oppression  of 
spirit.  Yet  this  might  act  differently  on  different  per- 
sons, or  on  the  same  persons  at  different  times. 

He  recommends  also,  as  an  act  of  greater  love  and 
merit,  that  we  should  make  the  offering  of  our  actions 
for  several  supernatural  ends,  subordinate  to  the  great 
one  of  God  alone  ;  and  he  gives  the  following  examples, 


*  The  Benedictine  and  Carmelite  schools  of  mystical  theology  would 
lardly  allow  this  Jesuit  doctrine.  But  the  merit  of  contemplation  is  a 
<ery  vexed  question 


192  MINTING    MONEY. 


not  that  we  should  necessarily  think  of  them  all  in  all 
our  actions,  but  in  order  to  furnish  variety  for  different 
tastes  and  devotional  inclinations.  1.  For  the  super- 
natural goodness  which  there  is  in  the  act  of  virtue 
itself.  2.  To  fulfil  the  precepts  of  God  or  the  Church. 
3.  To  obey  our  superiors.  4.  To  overcome  and  mor- 
tify self.  5..  To  satisfy  for  the  sins  of  such  and  such  a 
person :  for,  in  order  to  satisfy  for  our  own  sins,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  make  a  distinct  oblation  of  our  actions. 
For,  every  supernatural  work  of  a  just  man  satisfies 
for  his  sins  of  itself,  if  it  be  not  offered  for  others.  C. 
That  by  this  work  we  may  worship,  glorify,  and  please 
God  in  the  highest  degree.  7.  That  we  may  show  Ilim 
our  gratitude  for  all  His  gifts  to  us  and  to  others,  to 
the  Sacred  Humanity  of  our  Blessed  Lord,  to  our  dear 
Lady,  the  angels,  the  saints,  and  even  the  unhappy 
ones  who  are  lost.  8.  That  w^e  may  give  good  example 
and  edification.  9.  That  by  this  action  or  word  we 
may  increase  the  habits  of  virtue  which  make  us  dear 
to  God.  10.  That  we  may  become  more  like  God. 
11.  That  we  may  thus  adorn  our  souJ,  and  make  it  a 
more  fitting  temple  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  a  more 
chaste  member  of  Jesus  Christ.  12.  That  we  may  so 
spread  more  widely  the  glory  of  Christ  and  the  efficacy 
of  Ilis  Precious  Blood  by  thus  multiplying  supernatural 
actions  in  ourselves.  13.  That  we  may  gladden  the 
Church  Triumphant.  14.  And  adorn  the  Church  Mili- 
tant. 15.  And  confound  the  evil  spirits.  IG.  That 
wc  may  call  down  more  grace  upon  all  the  Body  of 
Christ.  17.  That  we  may  thus  before  men,  angels,  and 
devils,  exhibit  the  efficacy  of  the  Blessed  Eucharist. 
18.  That  we  may  fulfil  thereby  our  vows,  or  desires,  or 
resolutions.     19.  That  we  may  be  faithful  to  divine  in- 


MINTINa    MONEY.  193 


splrations.  20.  That  we  may  imitate  Christ  and  tho 
Saints.  21.  That  we  may  thereby  do  honour  to  our 
dear  Lady,  our  guardian  angel,  or  our  patron  saint. 
And  all  these  intentions  will  apply  as  well  to  the  sujQfer- 
ing  of  evil  as  to  the  doing  of  good. 

Thus,  in  the  secret  laboratory  of  intention,  is  the 
dross  of  our  commonest  actions  daily  turned  into  the 
finest  gold ;  and  we  may  learn,  to  our  great  consolation, 
of  what  value  these  actions  become  in  our  Lord's  sight, 
from  His  own  revelation  to  St.  Gertrude.  As  a  covet- 
ous usurer,  said  lie,  would  not  willingly  miss  the 
opportunity  of  making  a  single  penny,  much  more 
unwillingly  would  I  allow  one  thought  or  one  move- 
ment of  your  little  finger  made  for  My  sake  to  perish, 
without  My  turning  it  to  My  own  great  praise  and 
your  eternal  salvation.  On  another  occasion,  when  she 
was  sufiering  one  night  from  weakness,  she  ate  some 
grapes,  with  the  mental  intention  of  refreshing  our 
Lord  in  herself.  He  on  His  part  took  this  as  a  royal 
gift,  and  said  to  her,  **  In  this  I  confess  that  you  have 
recompensed  Me  for  the  bitter  potion  which  I  for  your 
sake  took  upon  the  cross ;  for  now  I  suck  unspeakable 
sweetness  out  of  your  heart ;  for  with  how  much  greater 
purity  of  intention  you  recreate  your  body  for  My 
glory,  with  so  much  the  more  sweetness  do  I  acknow- 
ledge myself  recreated  in  your  soul."  Another  time 
our  Lord  said  to  her,  "  My  tenderness  will  accept  one 
step,  or  one  lifting  of  a  straw  from  the  ground,  or  one 
word,  or  one  courteous  gesture,  or  one  Requiem  geter- 
nam  for  the  dead,  or  one  word  for  sinners,  or  even  for 
the  just,  if  there  be  a  pious  intention  along  with  it." 

It  is  consoling,  and  perhaps,  all  things  considered, 
not  surprising,  that  the  spiritual  writings  of  the  sainta 
17  N 


194  MINTING    MONEV. 


were  much  more  condescending  towards  our  low  attain 
ments  and  faint  hearts  than  the  writings  of  good  men 
who  are  not  saints.  How  often  is  the  poor,  timid,  yet 
aspiring  spirit  wearied  and  cruelly  beaten  back  by  the 
hard,  dry,  theoretical  system  of  some  spiritual  books  I 
How  full  they  are  of  heights,  so  high  that  an  angel 
scarce  could  breathe  upon  them  !  They  are  ever  put- 
ting before  us  an  almost  impossible  detachment  from 
creatures,  a  continual  stress  and  strain  of  mind,  a  com- 
plete death  of  all  natural  activity,  or  else  they  tell  us 
we  are  not  in  the  right  way.  I  do  not  say  already  on 
the  mountain  tops,  but  not  even  on  the  road.  Again, 
they  throw  us  almost  into  despair,  by  showing  us  how 
delusion  is  everywhere,  and  wellnigh  inevitable  ;  so 
that  we  abandon  the  pursuit  of  perfection  altogether, 
as  a  state  where  God  entices  us  only  to  take  us  at  a 
disadvantage.  How  different  are  the  writings  of  the 
saints  !  Even  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  the  "  doctor  ©f 
nothingness,"  as  he  has  been  named,  how  sweet,  en- 
couraging, mild,  hopeful,  and  gradual  he  is  to  the  lowest 
of  us  in  his  teaching !  Of  my  St.  Philip,  it  used  to  be 
said,  laughingly,  in  his  lifetime,  that  he  drove  men  to 
heaven  in  a  carriage  and  four.  Wise  St.  Ignatius  said, 
that  if  men  in  religious  houses  were  not  fed  well,  they 
could  never  pray  well ;  and  in  the  work  Of  a  Good 
Superior,  we  may  see  how  he  was  always  teasing  the 
Father  Ministers  to  get  better  food,  and  of  a  more  ex- 
pensive quality.  He  drove  one  nearly  wild  by  insist- 
ing that  all  the  community  should  have  lampreys  one 
Friday  when  they  were  very  dear,  so  that  only  cardi- 
nals and  ambassadors  were  buying  them.  St.  Francis 
of  Sales  complained  to  the  Bishop  of  Belley  of  the  bad 
dinners  he  gave  him,  yet  he  was  the  saint  of  pure  love. 


MINTING    MONEY.  195 


Would  tliat  pure  spirit,  St.  Alphonso,  have  been  half 
80  lax,  if  he  had  been  but  half  as  holy?  Spiritual 
books  tell  us  that  if  we  indulge,  for  instance,  our  sense 
of  smell  in  some  fragrance,  it  is  a  huge  immortification  ; 
yet  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi  runs  into  the  garden, 
plucks  a  flower,  inhales  the  fragrance  with  delight,  and 
cries  out,  "  0  good,  most  good  God !  who  from  all 
eternity  destined  this  flower  to  give  me,  a  sinner,  this 
enjoyment."  So  I  know  not  how  St.  Gertrude  and  her 
grapes  would  have  fared  with  some  spiritual  writers. 
She  would  have  been  told  that  she  should  remember 
our  Lord's  thirst  upon  the  cross,  and  that  she  should 
not  give  way,  unless,  indeed,  she  felt  that  she  had  not 
grace  for  the  heights  of  perfection.  You  see  our  sweet 
Jesus  took  quite  another  view.  Thus,  also,  St.  Theresa, 
in  her  letter  to  Alonzo  Velasquez,  bishop  of  Osma, 
speaking  of  herself  in  the  third  person,  says,  "  Besides 
what  I  have  just  mentioned,  then  again,  as  far  as  re- 
gards her  body  and  health,  I  think  she  takes  more  care 
of  it,  and  is  less  mortified  in  eating ;  neither  has  she 
such  desires  of  doing  penance  as  she  used  to  have. 
But,  in  her  opinion,  all  tends  to  this  object,  namely,  to 
be  able  to  serve  God  the  more  in  other  things  ;  for  she 
often  offers  Him,  as  an  agreeable  sacrifice,  this  care  she 
cakes  of  the  body."*  I  am  not  saying  it  is  easy  to  be 
a  saint,  but  that  saints  deal  more  easily  with  those  who 
are  trying  to  be  saints  than  uncanonized  writers  do. 
The  saints  are  the  easiest  masters.  It  is  because  they 
are  more  like  Jesus  than  the  rest  of  men.  Whosoever 
is  trying  to  attain  Christian  perfection,  let  him  follow 
St.  Philip's    rule,  and   keep  to  the   books  of  authors 

*  Dalton'a  Translation,  vol.  i.  p.  16. 


196  MINTING   MONEY. 


"  whose  names  begin  with  an  S" — that  is,  the  saints. 
If  he  puts  himself  too  completely  into  the  hands  of 
other  authors,  the  chances  are  ten  to  one  that  others, 
far  behind  him  now,  will  one  day  meet  him  walking 
down  the  hill  in  dismay  of  soul,  angry  and  disheart- 
ened, because  his  authors  have  dragged  him  through 
the  brambles,  and  broken  his  knees  upon  the  rocks,  and 
given  many  an  occasional  roll  down  slippery  steeps, 
while  others  have  been  stealing  on  with  modest  stealth, 
picking  their  way  from  one  saintly  footprint  to  an- 
other, as  little  urchins  walk  along  the  sea-sands,  put- 
ting their  tiny  feet  into  the  footprints  which  a  big  man 
leaves  behind  him,  and  if  the  strides  are  a  little  long 
And  somewhat  ludicrous,  at  least  the  quicksands  are 
avoided. 

But  I  must  guard  against  being  misunderstood.  I 
am  not  saying  that  uncanoniied  spiritual  writers  are 
dangerous  guides,  or  that  their  works  are  not  most 
valuable,  and  many  of  them  received  with  the  applause 
of  the  Universal  Church.  All  I  mean  is  that,  speaking 
generally,  there  is  a  very  perceptible  diflFerence  between 
the  tone  of  writers  that  are  saints,  and  writers  that  are 
not  saints,  and  that  the  difference  is  that  the  saints  are 
more  condescending,  and  speak  more  indulgently ;  and 
further,  still  speaking  generally y  those  persons,  and  they 
are  not  few,  who  are  men  of  one  book,  and  trust  them- 
selves utterly  to  one  book,  are  safest  when  that  book  is 
the  work  of  a  saint.  I  do  not  forget  that  Thomas  t\ 
Kempis  is  not  a  saint,  and  that  St.  Francis  of  Sales  was 
a  man  of  one  book,  and  his  author,  Scupoli,  the  Thea- 
tine,  is  uncanonized.  You  must  not  push  my  words 
beyond  a  caution  and  a  general  proposition.  The  fact 
is,  spiritual  books  are  a  tremendous  power,  and  can 


MINTING    MONEY.  197 


harm  as  well  as  help,  and,  like  steam,  when  they  do 
harm,  it  is  on  a  terrific  scale. 

But  it  was  not  simply  because  Gertrude  was  a  saint 
that  our  Lord  took  such  pleasure  in  this  oblation  of  her 
ordinary  actions.  Once  when  the  whole  community 
were  bowing  at  the  words,  Verbum  caro  factum  est, 
out  of  reverence  for  our  Lord's  Incarnation,  she  under- 
stood our  Lord  to  say,  "  Whenever  any  one  with  devout 
gratitude  bows  at  these  words,  giving  Me  thanks  be- 
cause for  the  love  of  him  I  defgned  to  become  Man,  so 
often,  impelled  by  the  spur  of  My  own  tenderness,  do 
I  condescendingly  bow  to  him  in  return  ;  and  with  the 
most  intimate  affection  of  My  Heart,  I  make  a  double 
offering  to  God  the  Father  of  all  the  fruit  of  My  most 
Blessed  Humanity,  in  augmentation  of  that  man's  eter- 
nal bliss."  See,  also,  how  He  speaks  of  comforts: 
*'  Whosoever,'^  said  He,  to  St.  Gertrude,  "  shall  study 
to  take  all  his  recreations  and  use  his  comforts,  in 
drinking,  eating,  sleeping,  and  the  like,  with  this  in- 
tention in  his  heart  or  mouth.  Lord,  I  take  this  food, 
or  whatever  it  may  be,  in  union  with  that  love  where- 
with Thou  didst  sanctify  Thyself,  when,  in  Thy  most 
Sacred  Humanity,  Thou  didst  use  like  comforts,  to  the 
glory  of  the  Father,  and  the  salvation  of  the  whole  hu- 
man race,  that  in  union  with  Thy  divine  love  it  may 
increase  the  consolation  of  those  in  heaven,  on  earth, 
and  in  purgatory — he,  each  time  he  does  so,  is  as  it 
were  a  most  firm  shield  in  front  of  Me,  against  the  many 
vexations  with  which  worldly  people  persecute  Me,  and 
I  look  upon  him  as  My  protector  and  defender."  Once, 
on  the  Thursday  before  the  Carnival,  after  matins, 
Gertrude  heard  some  servants  in  a  neighbouring  house 
making  a  noise  in  the  kitchen,  preparing  their  break- 

17* 


198  MINTING    MONEY. 


Aist.  She  sighed,  and  exclaimed,  "Alas,  ray  Lord! 
how  early  men  rise  in  the  morning  to  persecute  Thee 
with  their  feasting  I"  But  our  Lord,  smiling  a  little 
at  her,  replied,  "  Nay,  dearest  daughter !  here  is  no 
need  for  sighing.  They  who  are  making  the  noise  are 
not  of  the  number  who  rage  against  Me  with  their  glut- 
tony ;  for  by  this  breakfast  they  are  incited  to  their 
daily  toil.  Wherefore  I  delight  in  their  feeding,  as  a 
man  rejoices  when  he  sees  his  beast  feed  heartily,  be- 
cause it  will  serve  him  better.'' 

0  gentle  Lord !  why  do  not  our  hearts  melt  Avhen  we 
read  these  things  of  Thee?  It  is  no  taskmaster  with 
whom  we  have  to  do !  Such  little  toils  and  such  great 
rewards !  Such  a  profusion  of  mercies,  and  graces, 
and  caresses !  If  the  dog  loves  his  master,  and  shows 
that  he  appreciates  his  kindness  and  attentions,  how 
much  more  should  we  serve,  and  all  for  love,  so  dear  a 
Master  as  our  compassionate  Lord?  Yet,  alas!  we 
will  persist  in  having  such  hard  notions  of  our  won- 
derful God.  We  will  go  on  imitating  the  ungracious 
ways  of  the  servant  who  hid  his  one  talent  in  a  napkin 
for  fear  of  his  Lord's  austerity,  and  we  will  not  own 
God  for  w^hat  He  is,  our  almost  incredibly  indulgent 
Father.  And  how  he  feels  this  rude  perversity  !  "  Hear, 
0  ye  heavens  !  and  give  ear,  0  earth !  I  have  brought 
up  children,  and  exalted  them  ;  but  they  have  despised 
Me.  The  ox  knoweth  his  owner,  and  the  ass  his  mas- 
ter's crib  ;  but  Israel  hath  not  known  Me,  and  My  peo- 
ple hath  not  understood."*  Yet  while  we  will  not 
show  Him  the  gratitude  of  beasts.  He  still  covenants 
to  be  to  us  more  than  a  mother  to  her  child.     When 

*  Isaias  i.  3. 


MINTING   MONEY.  190 


Sion  said,  "  The  Lord  hath  forsaken  me,  and  the  Lord 
hath  forgotten  me,"  He  answered  the  cry,  "  Can  a  wo- 
man forget  her  infant,  so  as  not  to  have  pity  on  the  son 
of  her  womb  ?  and  if  she  should  forget,  yet  will  not  I 
forget  Thee/'t 

What  is  more  necessary  to  true  worship  than  a  deep 
and  calm  reverence  ?  Nay,  what  is  more  sweet  to  hot- 
hearted  love  than  to  be  hushed  and  awe-smitten  in  the 
presence  of  the  refulgent  attributes  of  God?  Fami- 
liarity in  religion  would  be  a  simple  impertinence  if 
reverence  did  not  mingle  with  it.  What  more  familiar 
than  the  relation  between  father  and  son,  yet  what  love 
more  reverent  than  filial  love  ?  Yet  it  was  no  true  re- 
verence which  made  Peter  tell  his  Master  to  depart 
from  him  because  he  was  a  sinful  man,  or  which  made 
the  craven  men  of  Gadara  beseech  Jesus  to  withdraw 
Ilis  importunate  blessings  from  their  coast.  But  it  was 
reverence  which  made  Magdalene  strive  to  hold  the 
Risen  Jesus  by  His  feet,  though  it  was  not  His  will  to 
suffer  it.  Too  often,  alas  !  we  mistake  coldness  for  re- 
verence, and  stiffness  for  respect.  How  sweetly  did 
Jesus  reprove  that  spirit  when  St.  Gertrude  com- 
plained to  Him  of  one  of  her  nuns  who  out  of  reverence, 
as  she  fancied,  kept  away  from  a  community  commu- 
nion. "  What  would  you  have  me  do  V  said  our  Blessed 
Lord,  "  these  good  people  tie  the  bandage  of  their  own 
unworthiness  so  tightly  over  their  eyes  that  they  can- 
not see  the  tenderness  of  My  Paternal  Heart.'^f 

The  spirit  of  St.  Gertrude  was  so  eminently  a  spirit 
of  oblation  and  of  familiarity,  that  when  Lancisiua 
wrote  his  treatise  on  the  Presence  of  God,  he  devoted 

•  IsftiM  Tilix.  U.  t  Rev.  iii.  x.  sub.  fine. 


200  MINTING    MONEY- 

an  entire  chapter  to  the  methods  observed  by  her  in  the 
oblation  of  her  ordinary  actions.  Eusebius  Amort,  in 
his  examination  of  her  revelations,  notes  the  language 
of  some  of  these  methods  as  new  in  the  Church, 
and  not  according  to  the  language  of  the  schools ; 
though  other  grave  authors  quote  them  with  approval. 
Omitting  these,  I  will  now  mention  some  of  her  me- 
thods.* Sometimes  she  offered  her  actions  in  union  with 
the  mutual  love  of  the  Three  Divine  Persons  of  the 
Adorable  Trinity.  Sometimes  she  offered  the  pains 
and  tears  of  Jesus  for  the  negligences  of  her  actions. 
Sometimes  she  made  her  oblation  in  union  with  the 
efficacious  prayer  of  Jesus,  and  in  the  virtue  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  for  the  emendation  of  her  sins  and  the 
supply  of  her  omissions.  Sometimes  in  gratitude  for 
blessings,  she  offered  with  her  thanks  "  that  sweetness 
which  in  the  supercelestial  treasury  of  the  Divinity,  be- 
yond all  sense,  and  with  infinite  pleasure,  the  Divine 
Persons  communicate  to  each  other."  Another  of  hei 
offerings  was  all  the  Passion  of  God's  dear  Son  from 
the  hour  when  He  first  wept  as  He  was  laid  upon  the 
straw  in  the  manger,  to  the  hour  when  He  bowed  His 
head  upon  the  cross,  and  with  a  loud  cry  gave  up  the 
ghost.  This  was  for  her  sins.  Then,  in  reparation  for 
her  negligences,  she  offered  to  the  Father  all  the  most 
holy  conversation  of  his  Son,  which  was  fiiultlessly  per- 
fect in  all  thoughts,  words,  and  deeds,  from  the  hour 
when  he  was  sent  into  the  world,  to  the  hour  when  He 
presented  to  His    Father  the  glory  of  His  victorious 

*  In  a  similar  manner,  Schram,  in  his  Mystical  Theology,  censures  as 
almost  heretical,  ejaculations  which  St.  Francis  of  Sales  quotes  with  ten- 
derness and  relish.  Yet  in  doctrinal  fliatters  it  may  be  safer  for  us  to 
follow  the  colder  and  more  cautious  author.    Besides,  he  wn)te  later. 


MINTING   MONEY.  201 


flesh.  In  union  with  her  thanksgiving  she  offered  back 
to  God  what  He  had  given,  and  using  the  Sacred  Heart 
of  Jesus  as  a  sweet-thrilling  organ,  she  sounded  it  in 
the  virtue  of  the  Paraclete,  and  accompanying  it  with 
her  songs,  she  sang  to  God  praises  on  behalf  of  all  the 
creatures  in  heaven,  on  earth,  and  beneath  the  earth, 
which  have  been,  are,  or  ever  shall  be.  At  other 
times  she  made  her  offerings  in  union  with  the  Divine 
Perfections  ;  and  our  Lord  Himself  taught  her  to  offer 
some  actions  to  Him  in  union  with  the  love  bj  which 
God  was  made  man.  Once  when  she  was  offering  to 
the  Father  all  the  holy  conversation  of  His  Only-Be- 
gotten, it  seemed  to  her  as  if  all  the  gems  with  which 
our  Lord's  vestments  were  adorned,  moved  in  them,  and 
gave  out  a  most  ravishing  melody  in  praise  of  the  Eter- 
nal Father ;  by  which  she  knew  how  acceptable  to  God 
was  this  particular  method  of  oblation. 

At  other  times  she  made  her  offering  in  this  way : 
"0  Lord!  I  offer  this  work  to  Thee  by  Thine  only 
Son,  in  the  virtue  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  to  Thine  eternal 
praise."  It  was  then  given  her  to  see  that  by  this  in- 
tention her  works  were  ennobled,  and  made  magnificent 
beyond  all  human  estimation ;  for,  just  as  a  thing 
looks  green  which  is  looked  at  through  a  green  glass, 
or  red  through  a  red  glass,  so  is  every  thing  most  pleas- 
ing and  acceptable  to  God  the  Father,  which  is  offered 
through  His  Only-Begotten  Son.  Sometimes  she  prayed 
our  Lord  that  He  would  deign  to  offer  for  her  all  the 
perfections  which  He  had  on  the  day  of  His  Ascension. 
At  other  times  she  offered  her  heart  to  God,  to  His 
eternal  praise,  to  fulfil  both  in  her  body  and  her  soul 
all  His  good  pleasure.  At  this  offering  Jesus  was 
pleased  to  show  Himself  so  touched,  that  with  great 


202  MINTING   MONEY. 


joy,  and  the  utmost  sweetness,  He  stooped  from  tlio 
cross,  and  embracing  her  with  unspeakable  exultation, 
lie  gently  pressed  her  to  the  Wound  of  His  most  hcly 
Side,  and  said,  "  Welcome,  My  dearest  daughter !  you 
are  the  most  soothing  ointment  of  My  wounds,  and 
the  most  sweet  alleviation  of  My  pains."  Our  Lord 
taught  her  also,  by  saying  Alleluia,  to  praise  God  in 
union  with  all  the  heavenly  citizens,  who  incessantly 
praise  Him  by  that  word  in  heaven.  Sometimes  sho 
offered  to  God  all  the  holy  conversation  of  Jesus  to 
supply  for  her  deficiency  since  the  hour  of  her  baptism, 
in  not  affording  such  a  Guest  a  worthy  mansion  in  her 
soul ;  or,  at  the  elevation  of  the  Host,  she  made  the 
same  offering  for  all  her  want  of  correspondence  to  the 
inspirations  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Or,  again,  in  union 
with  the  most  spotless  limbs  of  our  Blessed  Lord,  she 
commended  to  Him,  as  He  Himself  had  taught  her  to 
do,  all  the  limbs  of  her  body,  with  every  movement  of 
them,  that  from  that  time  they  should  never  move 
except  for  His  love,  and  to  His  praise  and  glory. 
When  she  did  this,  she  beheld  a  golden  belt  issue  from 
the  Heart  of  God,  and  clasp  her  soul,  so  as  to  unite  it 
in  indissoluble  love  with  our  Lord. 

These  are  given  as  specimens  of  St.  Gertrude's 
method  and  spirit,  which  may  be  suggestive  to  our- 
selves ;  not  as  recommending  any  of  them  particularly 
as  fitting  for  ourselves.  What  a  different  idea  we 
should  have  of  our  dearest  Lord,  if  we  practised  any 
thing  of  this  sort !  How  would  all  our  thoughts,  and 
loves,  and  wishes,  be  quickly  brought  into  subjection 
to  Him  !  And  does  not  this  at  least  show  us  how  the 
driest  and  most  secular  occupation  may,  with  ease  and 


MINTING   MONEY.  203 


sweetness,  be  turned  into  a  perpetual  service  of  Divine 
Love  ? 

2.  Besides  these  ordinary  actions  belonging  to  our 
state  and  calling  in  life,  our  recreation  and  free  time 
should  be  filled  with  meritorious  actions  ;  so  that  Jesus 
may  always  be  reaping  a  harvest  of  glory  and  of  love 
in  our  hearts.  Alas  !  how  many  in  communities  lose 
in  recreation  all  they  have  gained  in  observance  and  in 
prayer  ;  so  that  mortification  is  an  easier  duty  in  the 
religious  life  than  recreation.  JNIariano  Sozzini,  a 
father  of  the  Roman  Oratory,  mentions  that  one  of 
the  fiithers  in  his  day  used,  as  he  went  daily  from  the 
refectory  to  the  recreation-room,  to  pray  for  the  four 
first  fruits  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  charity,  joy,  peace,  and 
patience :  because,  to  make  recreation  at  once  general 
and  useful,  these  four  gifts  were  required.  Some 
have  attained  to  such  a  practice  of  the  presence  of  God, 
that  when  out  walking,  and  engaged  in  conversation, 
they  have  contrived  to  say  to  God  in  their  hearts  at 
nearly  every  step  they  took,  '■^for  Thy  sake,  for  Thy 
sake;  Propter  Te,  Propter  Te  ;''  and  the  same,  while 
helping  themselves  at  table,  and  at  nearly  all  their 
gestures  during  meals.  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi 
told  her  novices  to  ofier  to  God's  glory,  if  it  were 
possible,  the  very  winking  of  their  eyes,  and  the 
slightest  motions  of  their  limbs ;  and  she  promised 
them,  if  they  would  act  in  this  way,  that  they  should 
go  straight  to  heaven,  after  their  death,  without  the 
pains  of  purgatory.  In  order  to  get  this  practice  more 
deeply  rooted  in  them,  she  often  asked,  first  one,  and 
then  another,  quite  unexpectedly,  and  whatever  they 
were  doing,  with  what  intention  the}'^  were  acting.  If 
Bomo  cne  gave  her  no  answer  at  once,  she  gathered 


204  MINTING    MONEY. 


that  she  had  begun  her  work  without  a  previous  inten- 
tion, and  reproved  her  for  losing  an  occasion  of  merit, 
and  taking  sway  a  pleasure  from  God.  It  is  men- 
tioned, of  course  as  a  marvel,  in  the  Life  of  Gregory 
Lopez,  that  for  three  whole  years  he  had  said  in  his 
heart  at  every  respiration,  '*  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth 
as  it  is  in  heaven ;"  and  the  habit  was  so  formed  in 
him,  that  if  by  chance  he  awoke  during  the  night,  ho 
began  to  do  the  same.  We  cannot  do  these  things, 
but  it  makes  us  love  God  more,  to  know  that  He  has 
raised  up  men  who  could.  Blessed  be  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity  for  all  grace  that  has  ever  been  in  the  spirits 
of  angels,  and  the  hearts  of  men ! 

There  are  many  who  desire  to  be  all  for  God,  and 
are  fain  to  practise  some  such  bodily  austerities  as  they 
read  of  in  the  Lives  of  the  Saints  ;  but  either  their 
health  is  ailing  and  uncertain,  or  they  have  not  the 
courage  to  do  penance,  or,  which  is  most  common  of 
all,  the  health  and  courage  both  are  wanting.  We 
need  a  treatise  on  perfection  for  valetudinarians.  People 
in  ailing  health  can  do  both  more  and  less  than  those 
in  a  downright  illness:  and  the  more  and  the  less  want 
distinguishing  and  explaining.  For  valetudinarians, 
in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  spiritual  books  are 
almost  silent,  though  in  the  third  tract  of  Father 
Baker's  Sancta  Sophia  there  is  much  that  is  to  the 
purpose.  Yet  St.  Bernard  is  said  to  have  purposely 
chosen  unhealthy  sites  for  his  monasteries,  because  he 
considered  weak  health  a  great  help  to  contemplation 
and  interior  exercise.  But  now-a-days  nervousness, 
rheumatism,  and  an  effeminate  bringing  up,  do  the 
work  quite  as  effectually  as  the  malaria  of  a  woody 
Bwamp.     Yet  will  any  one  rule  that  a  valetudinarian 


MINTING    MONEY.  205 


cannot  be  a  saint,  or  practise  heroic  virtue  ?  Now,  if 
Buch  persons  are  really  honest  with  themselves,  they 
should  look  out  for  penances  which  neither  give  them 
the  bodily  pain  they  cannot  bear,  nor  interfere  with 
their  infirmities.  It  is  plain  that  to  be  scrupulous 
about  the  use  of  our  time,  is  just  such  a  penance  as 
this.  We  can  promise  God  that  we  will  never  will- 
ingly waste  our  time  in  occupations  by  which  we  can- 
not merit.  Now  this  resolution  is  by  no  means  easy 
to  keep  in  these  days ;  it  will  often  be  felt  as  a  yoke, 
interfering  with  our  natural  liberty.  Yet  if  we  keep 
it,  wc  shall  really  be  doing  penance,  and  at  the  same 
time  reaping  an  immense  harvest  for  the  glory  of  God, 
the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the  good  of  souls.  This 
does  not  by  any  means  forbid  recreations.  Every  one 
remembers  the  story  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo  and  his 
game  of  chess.  When  others  were  saying  what  they 
would  forthwith  begin  to  do  if  they  knew  they  should 
die  within  an  hour,  the  saint  said  he  should  go  on  with 
his  chess ;  for  he  had  begun  it  simply  for  God's  glory, 
and  he  desired  nothing  better  than  to  be  called  away 
in  the  midst  of  an  action  begun  for  the  glory  of  God. 
It  is  easy  to  merit  at  play  ;  for  almost  all  pastimes  are 
full  of  opportunities  for  the  practice  of  virtues.  It  is 
quite  possible  to  merit  by  reading  a  trashy  novel,  pro- 
vided trashiness  be  its  sole  or  worse  defect ;  both 
because  it  may  be  a  duty  to  distract  the  mind,  which 
can  only  be  distracted  by  an  interesting  occupation, 
and  also  because  the  forcible  contrast  between  the  un- 
reality of  the  foolish  tale,  and  those  solemn  realities 
of  the  faith  which  generally  engage  us,  draws  forth 
from  us  many  an  act  of  love,  and  many  an  act  of 
thanksgiving,  for  the  faith,  and  for  grace.     But  it  is 


206  MINTING   MONET. 


not  easy  to  merit  by  idling  about,  by  purposeless 
lounging,  by  wishing  the  time  away,  and  voting  things 
a  bore,  and  by  many  kinds  of  frivolous,  gossiping  con- 
versation. Religious  people  are,  for  the  most  part,  not 
80  scrupulous  about  the  use  of  their  time  as  they 
should  be  ;  yet,  surely  if,  as  we  believe,  St.  Charles  is 
a  degree  higher  in  heaven  for  his  game  of  chess,  it  is 
a  sad  thing  to  miss  so  many  opportunities  of  meriting, 
and  so  many  occasions  of  advancing  the  interests  of 
Jesus.  Really  the  exact  use  of  our  time  might  almost 
be  to  many  of  us  an  index  of  the  coolness  or  the  fer- 
vour of  our  love.  If  an  active  practical  Englishman 
was  allowed  a  certain  number  of  hours  in  a  rich  gold- 
digging,  where  the  dirt  was  cleared  away,  and  there 
was  nothing  to  do  but  to  pick  out  the  pure  ore,  he 
would  think  a  man  mad  who  would  suggest  to  him  to 
suspend  his  toil,  unless  fatigue  really  compelled  him  to 
do  so.  And  this  is  just  our  case  with  the  ordinary  ac- 
tions of  our  life,  and  even  with  our  recreations.  The 
real  toil  has  been  done  by  our  Blessed  Lord;  the  stones 
and  the  mud  were  His  share ;  for  us  there  is  nothing 
left,  if  we  choose,  but  the  precious  ore  ;  and  the  hours 
for  our  gold-digging  are  numbered,  and  we  know  not 
how  near  the  term  we  are.  Alas  I  we  shall  never 
know  the  value  of  time,  till  it  has  slipped  from  us, 
and  loft  us  in  eternity.  Dearest  Lord  !  will  it  leave 
us  then  with  Thee  ? 

St.  Gertrude  once  told  our  Lord  she  wished  to  build 
Him  a  spiritual  ark,  and  she  asked  Him  how  she  was 
to  do  it.  He  ansivered  her  as  follows  :  "  It  is  com- 
monly said  among  you  that  the  ark  of  Noe  had  three 
stories,  and  that  th^>  birds  were  in  the  upper  one,  men 
in  tho  middle,  and  the  beasts  below.     Now  take  thip 


MINTING    MONEY.  207 


for  your  model,  and  divide  all  your  days  upon  this 
plan.  From  early  morning  to  the  hour  of  noon,  you 
shall  offer  Me  praises  and  thanks  on  behalf  of  the  ■whole 
Church,  with  the  warmest  affection,  for  all  the  bene- 
fits I  have  ever  conferred  on  men  since  creation,  and 
especially  for  that  adorable  compassion  which  causes 
Me  to  let  Myself  be  sacrificed  on  the  altar  in  the  Holy 
Mass,  from  dawn  till  noon,  to  the  Eternal  Father  for 
men's  salvation.  While  men  make  light  of  all  this, 
and  give  themselves  to  pleasure  and  feasting,  ungrate- 
fully forgetful  of  me,  do  you,  in  their  stead,  offer  Me 
continual  praises,  and  so  will  you  seem  to  catch  the 
volatile  birds,  and  shut  them  up  in  the  higher  chamber 
of  the  ark.  From  noon  to  evening,  be  zealous  daily  to 
exercise  yourself  devoutly  in  good  works,  in  union 
with  the  most  holy  intention  wherewith  all  the  works 
of  My  sacred  Humanity  were  done,  to  make  up  for  the 
negligences  of  the  rest  of  the  world ;  and  this  will  be 
to  congregate  men  in  the  middle  chamber  of  the  ark. 
From  evening  to  dawn,  in  the  bitterness  of  your  heart, 
protest  against  men's  impiety,  whereby  they  not  only 
refuse  Me  gratitude  for  what  I  have  done,  but  provoke 
Me  to  anger  by  all  manner  of  sins ;  and  do  you  offer 
for  their  repentance  the  pain  and  bitterness  of  My  most 
innocent  Passion  and  Death,  and  thus  will  you  gather 
the  beasts  into  the  lower  chamber  of  the  ark.  Yet, 
while  our  dear  Lord  thus  traced  out  for  St.  Gertrude 
the  way  in  which  she  was  to  spend  her  day,  He  knew 
of  all  her  toils  and  cares,  and  that  by  obedience  to  her 
rule,  she  must,  with  her  spiritual  daughters,  take  her 
daily  recreations,  as  well  as  discharge  the  minute 
duties  of  monastic  government. 
3.  There  is  another  and  most  profitable  practice, — to 


208  MINTING   MONEY. 


do  for  your  solitude  what  you  do  for  your  occupations. 
"When  you  are  alone,  or  awake  in  the  night,  offer  up 
your  solitude  in  union  with  the  solitude  of  Jesus  in 
the  sepulchre  and  in  the  tabernacle ;  and  do  this,  to 
impetrate  for  yourself  and  for  those  you  love,  the 
grace  of  a  good  death.  1.  That  you  may  die  in  the 
grace  of  God.  2.  And  with  great  merit,  so  as  to 
glorify  God  all  the  more  in  heaven.  3.  And  having 
had  great  fruit  in  saving  the  souls  for  whom  Christ 
died  and  was  buried.  4.  That  you  may  die  without 
fame  and  glory,  as  Jesus  died  without  honour  between 
two  thieves.  5.  And  without  any  obligation  of  going 
to  purgatory,  6,  and  leaving  behind  you  a  great  trea- 
sure of  satisfactions  which  you  do  not  need  yourself, 
and  so  which  can  be  added  to  the  treasures  out  of 
which  the  Church  grants  indulgences  ;  and  7,  that  you 
may  glorify  God  on  earth  even  when  you  are  dead,  by 
the  memory  of  your  good  Avorks,  by  salutary  advices 
given,  or  devout  books  written,  or  the  abiding  fruit  of 
your  prayers. 

4.  Through  the  practice  of  oblation  we  can  merit  by 
the  commonest  things,  if  we  are  in  a  state  of  grace. 
Every  time  we  merit  we  give  God  a  distinct  glory,  the 
interests  of  Jesus  a  distinct  advancement,  and  the 
souls  of  men  almost  innumerable  benefits  through  the 
communion  of  saints.  Now,  here  is  another  way  of 
meriting  by  common  things, — rising  to  God  by  the 
sight  of  creatures.  This,  as  you  know,  has  been  one 
of  the  commonest  and  most  fervent  practices  of  tho 
saints.  Lancisius  says.  You  go  out  of  your  house  and 
you  see  some  people  talking,  praj'  that  they  may  say 
no  idle  words  for  which  they  will  have  to  give  account. 
You  hear  the  howling  of  the  wind,  pray  for  those  who 


MINTING   MONEY.  209 


are  at  sea.  You  pass  by  a  tavern,  and  hear  the  noise 
of  those  within,  pray  that  they  may  not  offend  God, 
and  that  those  who  have  done  so  may  go  to  confession. 
AVhen  St.  Athanasius  sent  for  St.  Pambo  to  leave  the 
desert  and  come  to  Alexandria,  the  holy  abbot  saw  a 
gaily-dressed  actress  in  the  streets ;  whereupon  he 
began  to  weep.  When  he  was  asked  why  he  did  so, 
he  answered,  "  Two  things  move  me ;  one  is  the  dam- 
nation of  that  woman ;  and  another  is,  that  I  do  not 
take  as  much  pains  to  please  God  as  she  does  to  please 
wicked  men."  You  see  even  sinful  things  were  steps 
to  God  for  him.  When  you  hear  the  pattering  of  the 
rain,  thank  God  for  it,  and  desire  to  offer  Him  as  many 
good  acts  of  faith,  hope,  charity,  contrition,  thanks- 
giving, humility,  adoration,  and  petition,  as  there  are 
drops  in  that  shower  ;  ask  for  the  continual  influx  of 
the  helps  of  grace  in  good  measure,  heaped  up,  shaken 
together,  and  running  over,  by  which  you  and  others 
may  always  act  in  the  most  perfect  manner,  and  glorify 
God  in  the  greatest  possible  degree. 

When  you  are  walking  out  or  travelling,  and  pass 
any  hamlet,  village,  or  town,  or  the  house  of  some 
great  man, — 1,  ask  God,  by  the  merits  of  those  who 
dwell  there,  to  have  mercy  upon  you  ;  2,  give  Ilim 
thanks  for  all  His  blessings,  past,  present,  and  future, 
on  the  inhabitants  ;  3,  commend  to  Ilim  all  their  ne- 
cessities, and  beg  Him  to  hear  their  prayers ;  4,  grieve 
for  all  the  sins  committed  there ;  5,  ask  for  the  remis- 
sion of  them ;  6,  commend  to  God  the  souls  of  those 
departed  there.  Surius  tells  us,  in  the  life  of  St. 
Fulgentius,  "that  when  the  saint  went  to  Rome,  and 
beheld  all  the  palaces  of  the  nobility,  he  cried  out, 
"  How  beautiful  must  be  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  if 
0  IS* 


210  MINTING    MONEY. 


the  earthly  Home  shines  thus!  And  if  such  dignity 
is  given  in  this  world  to  those  who  love  vanity,  what 
must  be  the  glory  of  the  saints  who  contemplate  the 
truth  V  We  read  of  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  when  visit- 
ing his  diocese,  that  he  was  deeply  affected  by  the 
sight  of  some  cormorants  fishing,  because  they  repre- 
sented to  him  in  so  lively  a  manner  the  devil's  ways  in 
catching  souls.  St.  Bonaventure  tells  us  that  St. 
Francis  carried  the  same  practice  to  quite  a  remarkable 
extent;  and  Ilibadeneyra  says  of  St.  Ignatius,  "We 
have  often  seen  him  from  the  most  trifling  things  rise 
to  God,  who  is  mighty  in  the  least  things  ;  the  sight 
of  a  little  plant,  a  single  leaf  or  fruit,  a  worm  or  an  in- 
sect, would  raise  him  in  a  moment  above  the  heavens." 
Monsignor  Strambi  gives  the  following  account  of 
the  Blessed  Paul  of  the  Cross,  the  Founder  of  the 
Passionists.*  His  holy  intentions  and  desires  were 
rewarded  by  the  Lord  with  great  spiritual  consola- 
tion ;  and  in  his  journey  to  make  the  visitation  of  his 
houses  he  fed  his  spirit  with  the  sweet  food  of  recol- 
lection. Coming  once  to  the  Ritiro  of  St.  Eutizio,  he 
turned  to  his  companion,  and  said,  "Whose  are  these 
lands  ?"  Ilis  companion  replied,  "  The  lands  of  Gal- 
lese."  But  Paul,  in  a  louder  voice,  said,  "Whose  are 
these  lands,  I  say  V  His  companion  not  understand- 
ing the  drift  of  his  question,  after  a  few  paces  the 
holy  Father  turned  to  him,  with  his  countenance 
shining  like  the  sun,  and  cried  out,  "Whose  are  these 
lands  ?  Ah  !  you  do  not  understand  me ;  they  belong 
to  the  great  God  I"  and  instantly  the  impetuosity  of 
his  love  lifted  him  and  carried  him  some  little  distance 

*  Vita.  p.  137. 


MINTING    MONEY.  211 


along  the  road.  Another  time  he  was  going  from  Ter- 
racina  to  Ceccano,  through  the  wood  of  Fo&sanova,  and 
after  he  had  visited  the  monastery  where  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  died,  and  was  come  into  a  thicket,  he  began 
to  cry  out  to  his  companion  impetuously,  "Oh,  do  you 
not  hear  how  these  trees  and  leaves  are  crying  out. 
Love  God,  Love  God  I"  And  then  kindling  more  and 
more  with  Divine  Love,  his  face  began  to  dart  out 
bright  rays,  and  he  kept  exclaiming,  "Oh,  how  is  it 
you  do  not  love  God  ?  How  is  it  you  do  not  love  God?" 
And  when  they  had  got  back  again  into  the  Roman 
road,  he  said  to  every  one  he  met,  "My  brother!  love 
God,  love  God,  who  deserves  it  so  much !  Bo  you  not 
hear  the  very  leaves  of  the  trees  crying  out  to  us  to 
love  God?  0  Love  of  God!  Love  of  God!''  And 
he  spoke  with  such  unction,  that  the  passers  by  burst 
into  tears.  We  read  of  him  in  another  place  that 
every  thing  served  to  remind  him  of  God,  and  he  used 
to  imagine  that  all  creatures  cried  out  to  entreat  the 
love  of  man  for  Him  who  made  them.  He  was  often 
observed  when  walking  in  the  fields,  especially  during 
the  spring  season,  to  gaze  earnestly  at  the  flowers  as 
he  went  along  and  to  touch  them  with  his  stick,  saying, 
"  Hold  your  tongues.  Hold  your  tongues  I"  And  he 
used  to  tell  his  religious  that  the  flowers  were  always 
calling  upon  them,  to  lift  up  their  hearts  in  love  and 
adoration  toward  their  heavenly  Creator. 

As  tastes  in  devotion  are  so  various,  my  readers  will 
forgive  the  following  long  extract  from  the  Life  of 
Father  Peter  Faber,  the  companion  of  St.  Ignatius,  by 
Orlandini.  He  was  particularly  eminent  for  his  gift 
of  turning  every  thing  to  prayer.  When  he  came  near 
any  city  or  town  he  used  to  pour  out  prayers  for  the 


212  MINTING    MONEY. 


inlial)itants,  and  beg  of  God's  mercy  that  the  angel  of 
the  place,  and  the  guardian  angels  of  the  inhabitants, 
might  guard  it  with  a  special  protection.  He  invoked 
also  the  patron  saints  of  the  place,  and  implored  them 
4o  return  thanks,  or  to  beg  pardon,  or  to  impetrate 
grace  for  the  inhabitants,  and  to  supply  for  all  their 
negligence  and  omission  in  these  respects,  that  God 
might  not  be  defrauded  of  any  of  His  glory.  In  hiring 
a  new  house  or  changing  his  lodgings,  it  was  his  cus- 
tom, when  he  first  entered  the  house,  to  go  and  kneel 
in  all  the  rooms,  corners,  and  cupboards  that  he  could, 
and  pray  God  to  drive  away  the  evil  spirits,  and  all 
dangers  and  sorrows  from  the  place  ;  and  in  his  prayer 
he  remembered  all  those  who  had  ever  lived  or  ever 
should  live  there,  and  entreated  that  no  injury  might 
happen  there  to  their  souls.  So  studiously  did  he  seek 
in  every  thing  materials  for  prayer,  that  when  he  went 
to  the  palace  of  a  certain  prince  to  hear  a  sermon  in 
the  chapel,  and  was  repulsed  by  a  porter  who  did  not 
know  him,  he  found  in  this  rudeness  nothing  but 
materials  for  prayer.  What  wonder  if  he  had  prayer 
BO  much  at  heart  when  he  was  well,  that  he  should  be 
assiduous  in  it  when  he  was  ill  ?  When  he  was  sick 
at  Louvain,  and  unable  to  sleep,  his  painful  watching 
only  furnished  him  with  materials  for  prayer.  When 
his  weakened  head  could  hardly  endure  the  vehemence 
of  his  headaches,  he  did  nothing  but  make  prayer  out 
of  our  Lord's  crown  of  thorns,  until  he  was  so  inflamed 
with  love  that  he  melted  into  sweet  tears.  This  per- 
petual pursuit  of  prayer  he  nourished  and  fed  with 
variety  in  devotion.  The  life  of  Christ  was  indeed  the 
food  of  his  daily  contemplation ;  for,  where  can  the 
mind  enjoy  greater  abundance  as  well  as  greater  sweet- 


MINTING    MONEY.  213 


ness?  Nevertheless,  to  foster  his  piety,  he  had  in 
vented  manifold  methods  of  prayer,  suggested  either  by 
his  accurate  reading,  or  by  doctrines,  or  by  the  impulse 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  there  were  three  especially 
which  he  found  so  useful  as  well  as  so  sweet,  and  yet 
quite  easy,  that  he  used  to  recommend  confessors  to 
teach  them  to  their  penitents. 

First,  he  had  a  great  devotion  to  litanies,  used  them 
assiduously,  and  applied  them  to  every  occasion.  He 
used  them  not  merely  to  ask  for  blessings,  which  is  the 
common  use  of  litanies,  but  for  the  purposes  of  praise, 
thanksgiving,  congratulation,  and  other  exercises  of  the 
virtue  of  religion.  One  of  his  practices  was  to  enter 
into  the  blessed  court  of  heaven,  and  there,  at  the 
throne  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  he  would  call  on  the 
Father  to  delight  in  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Spirit,  the 
Son  to  do  the  same  in  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Father  and  the  Son ;  and 
by  this  expression  he  meant  the  mutual  gratulation  of 
the  Divine  Persons  which  is  called  in  the  schools  com- 
placency. Then  he  besought  the  Queen  of  heaven  to 
adore,  in  his  name,  or  the  name  of  some  other,  living 
or  dead,  the  Most  Holy  Trinity ;  and  then  he  implored 
the  Holy  Trinity  to  bless  our  Lady  for  all  the  gifts 
which  pass  to  earth  through  her.  Then  he  went  to 
each  choir  of  angels,  and  each  order  of  the  blessed, 
begging  of  them  to  oifer  thanks  and  praise  for  him 
or  others  to  God,  our  Lady,  or  particular  angels  and 
saints. 

His  second  mode  of  prayer  was  to  go  through  all 
the  mysteries  of  our  Lord's  life  and  death,  skilfully 
accommodating  them  to  the  time  and  occasion,  and 
then  by  each  one  of  them  calling  separately  on  tho 


214  MINTING   MONEY. 


Persons  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  and  the  inhabitants 
of  heaven. 

His  third  manner  of  prayer  he  framed  from  the  pre- 
cepts of  God  and  the  Church,  the  doctrines  of  the 
faith,  the  seven  mortal  sins  and  the  opposite  virtues, 
the  works  of  mercy,  the  five  senses  of  man,  and  the 
three  faculties  of  the  soul.  These  he  recalled  in  order, 
one  after  the  other.  The  very  variety  of  the  things 
suggested  various  affections,  sometimes  petitions  for 
pardon,  sometimes  for  gifts,  sometimes  thanksgivings, 
not  for  himself  only,  or  the  living,  but  for  the  dead 
also,  begging  God  to  condone  to  them  whatever  they 
might  still  owe  Him  on  the  score  of  the  first  command- 
ment, or  the  second,  and  so  on,  and  the  same  with 
the  sins,  the  works  of  mercy,  the  senses,  and  the  powers 
of  the  soul. 

These  three  methods  of  prayer  were  quite  familiar 
to  him.  Neither  must  we  omit  to  observe  how  much 
a  knowledge  of  doctrine  helped  him,  as  Orlandini 
expressly  says.  He  also  fell  in  with  a  book  of  St. 
Gertrudes',  out  of  which  he  acknowledged  that  he  had 
drawn  ample  materials  for  prayer  to  his  own  great 
profit.  The  variety  of  the  ecclesiastical  times  and 
seasons  also  supplied  him  with  an  admirable  variety  of 
devotions.  And  this  variety,  this  vicissitude  of  succes- 
sive devotions,  he  found  so  to  sustain  and  whet  his  ap- 
petite at  the  banquet  of  prayer,  that  he  never  went  to 
any  religious  action  out  of  habit  or  custom  or  mere 
rule,  whether  it  were  to  his  meditation  or  to  mass  ;  bufc 
came  daily  new  and  fresh  to  his  most  habitual  devo- 
tions ;  just  as  Blessed  Paul  of  the  Cross  confessed  that 
he  never  remembered  having  once  said  mass  out  of 
mere  habitude,  which  few  priests  so  old  could  say 


MINTING    MONEY.  215 


There  are  others  to  whose  fervour  such  a  variety 
seems  fatal,  so  differently  does  it  please  God  to  lead 
souls  that  are  dear  to  Him:  and  all  Ilis  ways  are  good, 
because  they  are  His.  Few  indeed  are  like  Marie 
Denise  of  the  Visitation,  whom  God  led  by  the  way  of 
multiplicity  of  devotions ;  so  that  when  one  of  the  com- 
munity saw  her  manuscript  book  with  all  her  services 
and  intentions  noted  down,  and  said  to  her,  "Dear 
Sister  Marie  Denise,  why  do  you  say  such  a  multitude 
of  prayers?"  the  sister  replied,  "Because  God  has 
shown  me  that  He  created  me  for  this  end." 

There  is  a  great  difference  between  having  a  variety 
of  mental  devotions,  and  loading  ourselves  with  an 
indiscreet  number  of  vocal  prayers;  and  what  spiritual 
writers  say  of  the  one  case  does  not  always  apply 
equally  to  the  other.  Yet,  there  is  no  mistake  more 
-zoramon  than  to  confound  the  two.  Now,  the  loading 
of  ourselves  with  an  immense  number  of  vocal  prayers 
is  not  always,  (for  there  is  no  alwaijs  in  spiritual 
science,  except  where  sin  is  in  question,)  but  almost 
always,  a  simple  evil.  IIow  many  are  there  who  began 
their  flight  well,  but  soon  grew  weak  and  weary  on  the 
wing,  and  at  last  fell  to  the  earth,  entangled  in  litanies, 
overloaded  with  Memorares,  encumbered  with  rosaries, 
or  helplessly  pinioned  by  the  obligations  of  a  score  of 
Third  Orders  and  Confraternities !  They  have  ruined 
themselves  with  holy  things :  and  have  done  so,  ten  to 
one,  without  any  one's  knowledge  or  permission. 

Having  a  great  variety  of  mental  devotions  may 
often  be  an  evil,  but  it  is  a  different  thing  from  this ; 
and  the  unqualified  censure  which  some  rigorous 
authors  pass  upon  all  such  variety,  is  certainly  not  in 
keeping  either  with  the  practice  of  the  saints,  or  with 


216  MINTING   MONEY. 


the  milder  teaching  of  their  works.  There  is  nothing 
a  man  so  soon  becomes  attached  to  as  a  system  of 
spiritual  direction,  and  so  completely  does  his  own  one 
favourite  way  seem  to  him  the  sole  safe  way,  that  he 
can  hardly  realize  the  diversity  of  God's  operations,  or 
give  the  Holy  Ghost  liberty  in  the  hearts  of  those 
whom  he  is  training.  We  know  well  enough  that  solid 
mortification  and  persevering  self-abjection  are  the  real 
roads  to  the  highest  sanctity ;  but  are  persons  to  sit 
down  weeping  by  the  low  wayside  of  the  most  ordinary 
attainments,  unless  they  have  the  heart  to  scale  the 
rugged  heights  ?  Are  there  no  other  paths  of  love  that 
lie  higher  on  the  mountain  breast,  above  the  plain, 
though  lower  far  than  those  ambitious  pinnacles  ?  Ah ! 
how  many  are  sent  low,  held  low,  and  forced  lower,  by 
being  unwisely  forced  too  high!  "A  good  superior," 
said  St.  Jane  Frances  de  Chantal,  "  must  learn  to  fly 
low  as  well  as  to  fly  high ;"  and  the  first  is  a  harder 
duty  than  the  last ;  for,  mark  the  words,  it  is  not  to 
be  low,  or  to  rest  low,  but  to  fly  low.  Now,  it  may  be 
quite  true  that  the  shortest  and  directest  road  to  high 
sanctity  is  found  in  keeping  to  one  thing,  one  subject 
of  meditation,  one  examen,  one  exercise  of  devotion, 
and  that  this  painful  unity  should  be  kept  up  for  some 
years  without  a  change,  as  a  celebrated  writer  recom- 
mends. Yet  who  is  sufficient  for  these  things  ?  People 
living  in  the  world,  without  the  helps  of  a  religious 
house,  with  no  noviciate,  no  set  penances  in  community, 
but  with  a  thousand  necessary  distracting  duties,  and 
the  unavoidable  diversions  of  social  intercourse, — how 
are  they  to  do  these  things  ?  And  yet  they  have  a  call 
to  love;  they  will  not  to  be  kept  down.  You  must 
bavo  a  process  for  withering  their  souls,  or  you  must 


MINTING    MONET.  217 


fill  thcni  with  the  dews  of  heaven.  Hence  it  is  we  so 
often  see  those  spiritual  anomalies  of  a  devout  life, 
half  filled  with  the  practices  of  the  demure  cloister, 
and  half  with  the  appurtenances  of  a  London  season. 
And  what  comes  of  these  fitful  vagaries  ?  Unhappiness, 
failure,  and  vehement  self-abandonment  to  worldly 
pleasures,  as  if  in  revenge  for  past  strictness,  and  a 
lower  lowness  of  the  Christian  life,  which  I  hardly  like 
to  think  of.  Any  thing  comes  of  these  experiments, 
except  high  sanctity,  or  low  sanctity  either.  They 
result  in  no  sanctity  at  all. 

There  are  not  a  few  who  think  that  devotion  to  be 
solid  must  be  dry.  But  does  the  dry  system  answer  ? 
We  hear  people  condemning  unlucky  devotees,  because 
they  are  fond  of  functions  and  benedictions,  of  warm 
devotions  and  of  pictures  of  the  Madonna,  of  feasts  and 
foreign  practices,  for  with  such,  an  Italian  devotion  is 
something  next  door  to  a  heresy ;  I  suppose  because  it 
has  the  remarkable  bad  fortune  to  come  from  the  Holy 
City !  Now,  does  it  follow,  that  because  persons  are 
fond  of  these  things,  they  have  nothing  else  in  their 
piety  ?  Because  they  have  one  characteristic  of  good 
Catholics,  are  they  therefore  destitute  of  the  others? 
Because  they  like  flowers,  do  they  reject  fruit?  Oh, 
but  mortification  is  the  thing,  and  the  conscientious 
discharge  of  our  relative  duties.  Very  true  ;  and  pray, 
what  mortifications  do  you  practise,  honest  disciple  of 
dry  devotion  ?  Are  they  exterior,  the  hair-shirt,  the 
discipline  ?  Or  interior,  loving  to  be  spoken  ill  of,  and 
lightly  esteemed  ?  And  how  do  you  discharge  your 
relative  duties  ?  Almsgiving,  for  example,  is  one,  and 
to  keep  yourself  unspotted  from  the  world  is  another. 
How  do  these  things  fare  with  you  ?     Be  honest  with 

19 


218  MINTING    MONEI. 


yourselves,  or,  much  more,  be  honest  with  God.  Whe- 
ther we  want  mortifications  or  relative  duties  to  edify 
us,  I  suspect  we  must  seek  them  with  the  devotees,  not 
with  you.  If,  instead  of  the  definition  of  the  Immacu- 
late Conception,  you  would  have  enthusiasm  added  to 
the  number  of  mortal  sins,  to  what  post  of  honour  are 
we  to  assume  tepidity  ?  It  is  just  possible  that  enthu- 
siasm may  not  be  quite  the  monster  evil  of  the  world : 
at  least,  we  have  not  suffered  much  from  its  ravages 
here  in  England.  And  anyhow,  in  spiritual  matters, 
what  we  have  most  to  dread  is  the  evil  we  are  most 
likely  to  fall  into :  and  I  assure  you,  you  at  least  have 
no  danger  to  apprehend  from  hot-hearted  enthusiasm 
or  ultra-piety. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  may  not  unfrequently  happen 
that  souls,  who  want  something  beyond  this  dry  soli- 
dity, (if  any  thing  dry  can  be  solid  in  a  religion  which 
is  all  of  love,)  may,  by  being  allowed  scope  for  the  fer- 
vour of  first  beginnings  in  devotional  variety,  diversion, 
interest,  and  even  change,  ultimately  mount  to  higher 
things,  and  climb  with  a  more  manly  courage  the 
rougher  and.directer  roads  to  holiness.  But  see  how 
God  is  calling  souls,  and  lead  them  by  the  gentlest  and 
most  winning  ways,  unless  there  be  a  clear  vocation  to 
the  hard  and  rough.  Many  are  lost,  because  they  are 
forced  too  high,  and  many  more,  because  they  are  made 
to  fear  sensible  devotion,  and  to  believe  that  dryness  is 
solidity.  Oh,  do  any  thing,  I  beseech  you,  rather  than 
tire  people  of  their  good,  compassionate  God !  Rather 
interest  them  in  Ilim,  if  you  can,  and  all  you  can. 
Souls  are  gravely  warned,  w^ithout  regard  to  time,  or 
place,  or  person,  or  condition,  to  be  detached  from  the 
gifts  of  God,  and  to  eschew  sweet  feelings,  and  gushing 


MINTING   MONEY.  219 


fervours,  when  the  danger  is  rather  in  their  attachment 
to  their  carriages  and  horses,  their  carpets  and  their 
old  china,  the  parks  and  the  opera,  and  the  dear  bright 
world.  Why,  if  the  poor  Belgravians  could  get  a  little 
attachment,  were  it  only  to  an  image  or  a  holy  water- 
stoup,  and  I  care  not  how  inordinate,  it  would  be  a 
welcome  miracle  of  grace,  considering  all  they  have  to 
keep  them  far  from  God,  for  they  move  in  a  sphere 
which  seems  to  lie  outside  His  omnipresence.  No ! 
no !  the  warnings  of  St.  Theresa  to  Barefooted  Carme- 
lites are  hardly  fit  for  such  as  those.  Oh,  better  far 
to  flutter  like  a  moth  round  the  candles  of  a  gay  bene- 
diction, than  lie  without  love  in  the  proprieties  of 
sensual  ease  and  worldly  comfort,  which  seem,  but 
perhaps  are  not,  (and  you  cannot  tell,)  without  actual 
sin. 

5.  Another  method  of  glorifying  God  by  little  and 
common  things,  is  the  practice  of  ejaculatory  prayer. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  enter  at  length  into  this  sub- 
ject. Ita  connection  with  the  matter  now  before  us  is 
obvious.  It  was  the  chief  practice  of  the  Fathers  of 
the  Desert,  by  which  they  raised  themselves  to  such 
heights  of  sanctity.  St.  Francis  of  Sales  says,  "  That 
the  great  fabric  of  devotion  leans  upon  this  exercise, 
that  it  can  supply  the  defects  of  all  other  prayers,  and 
that  all  other  prayers  cannot  supply  the  defect  of  it." 
The  Abbot  Isaac  in  Cassian,  tells  us  wonderful  things 
of  that  single  ejaculation,  "  Deus  in  Adjutorium,  &c." 
When  Father  Brandano  was  going  into  Portugal,  he 
asked  St.  Ignatius  in  what  devotions  the  scholastics  of 
the  society  were  to  be  exercised.  The  Saint  replied, 
"That,  besides  the  usual  formal  devotions,  they  were 
to  exercise  themselves  in  seeking  our  Lord's  presence 


220  MINTING   MONEY. 


in  all  things,  in  talking,  walking,  looking  about  tliera, 
listening,  thinking,  and  every  thing,  as  it  is  certain  that 
the  Divine  Majesty  is  in  all  things  in  at  least  three 
ways,  by  essence,  presence,  and  power."  He  said, 
"  that  this  exercise  of  finding  God  in  every  thing  was 
less  laborious  than  meditations  on  abstract  matters,  and 
causes  God  to  visit  us  in  wonderful  ways,  even  for  one 
brief  ejaculation."  Thus  we  may  sigh  for  God's  glory, 
send  up  to  heaven  one  arrow-like  word  about  the  inte- 
rests of  Jesus  in  the  streets  of  London,  or  breathe  a 
little  prayer  for  souls,  wherever  we  are.  Without  any 
constraint  we  may  make  scores  of  them  in  a  day ;  and 
each  one  is  more  to  God  than  a  battle  gained,  or  a 
scientific  discovery,  or  a  crystal  palace,  or  a  change  of 
ministry,  or  a  political  revolution.  Many  of  these 
ejaculations  are  indulgenced,  and  thus  the  same  little 
brief  sentence  will,  1.  gain  merit,  2.  impetrate  grace, 
3.  satisfy  for  sin,  4.  glorify  God,  5.  honour  Jesus  and 
His  Mother,  6.  convert  sinners,  and  7.  soothe  with  sub- 
stantial indulgence  the  Holy  souls  in  Purgatory.  Can 
we  do  nothing  more  for  Jesus  in  this  respect  than  we 
have  done  hitherto  ?  0  Love  !  Love !  You  yourself 
must  tell  us,  and  teach  us  how,  and  remind  us  when 
we  forget. 

But  in  order  to  attain  all  these  ends,  it  is  not  enough 
that  our  vocal  ejaculations  should  be  uttered  in  a  slo- 
venly, oflf-hand  way,  or  without  an  inward  attention. 
It  is  often  the  fashion  now-a-days  to  speak  with  dis- 
esteem  of  vocal  prayer ;  yet  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  there  have  been  heresies  on  the  subject  in  very 
modern  times,  and  that  the  censure  of  condemned  pro- 
positions lies  upon  them.  It  was  by  means  of  vocal 
prayer  that  the  Fathers  of  the  Desert  rose  to  such 


MINTING    MONEY.  221 


h«?i^hts  of  sancity,  and  Father  Baker  tells  us*  that 
even  now  God  occasionally  leads  souls  thereby  to  the 
heights  of  contemplation  and  mystical  union.  He  gives 
the  following  reasons  for  the  effect  of  vocal  prayer 
being  different  on  the  ancients  to  what  it  is  on  us. 
"  One  reason  was  their  incomparably  more  abstraction 
of  life,  more  rigorous  solitude  and  almost  perpetual 
silence,  of  the  practice  of  which  in  these  days,  it  is 
believed,  we  are  not  capable.  A  second  was  their  fasts, 
abstinences,  and  other  austerities  beyond  the  strength 
of  our  infirm  corporal  complexions.  A  third  was  their 
external  employments  out  of  the  set  times  of  prayer, 
the  which  did  far  better  dispose  souls  to  recollection, 
to  attendance  on  the  Divine  Inspirations,  than  those 
ordinarily  practised  in  these  days." 

As  Father  Baker's  work  is  so  rare,  my  readers  will 
thank  me  for  the  clauses  in  which  he  sums  up  his  doc- 
trine concerning  vocal  prayer.  "  Now,  whereas  to  all 
manner  of  prayer  there  is  necessarily  required  an  at- 
tention of  the  mind,  without  which  it  is  not  prayer,  we 
must  know  that  there  are  several  kinds  and  degrees  of 
attention ;  all  of  them  good,  but  yet  one  more  perfect 
and  profitable  than  another.  For,  1.  There  is  an  atten- 
tion or  express  reflection  on  the  words  and  sense  of  the 
sentence  pronounced  by  the  tongue,  or  revolved  in  the 
mind.  Now,  this  attention  being,  in  vocal  prayer, 
necessarily  to  vary  and  change,  according  as  sentences 
in  the  Psalms,  &c.  do  succeed  one  another,  cannot  so 
powerfully  and  efficaciously  fix  the  mind  or  affections 
on  God ;  because  they  are  presently  to  be  recalled  to 
new  considerations  or  succeeding  affections.     This  i« 


*  Sancta  Sophia,  i.  202.  and  ii.  8.  et  seqq. 
19* 


222  MINTING    MONEY. 


the  lowest  and  most  imperfect  degree  of  attention ;  of 
which  all  souls  are  in  some  measure  capable ;  and  the 
more  imperfect  thej  are,  the  less  difficulty  there  is  in 
yielding  it ;  for  souls  that  have  good  and  established 
affections  to  God,  can  hardly  quit  a  good  affection  by 
which  they  are  united  to  God,  and  which  they  find 
gustful  and  profitable  for  them,  to  exchange  it  for  a 
new  one  succeeding  in  the  office ;  and  if  they  should, 
it  would  be  to  their  prejudice. 

"The  second  degree  is  that  of  souls  indifferently 
well  practised  in  internal  prayer,  who  coming  to  the 
reciting  of  the  Office,  and  either  bringing  with  them, 
or  by  occasion  of  such  reciting,  raising  in  themselves 
an  efficacious  affection  to  God,  do  desire,  without  varia- 
tion, to  continue  it  with  as  profound  a  recollectedness 
as  they  may,  not  at  all  heeding  whether  it  be  suitable 
to  the  sense  of  the  present  passage  which  they  pro- 
nounce. This  is  an  attention  to  God,  though  not  to 
the  words,  and  is  far  more  beneficial  than  the  former. 
And,  therefore,  to  oblige  any  souls  to  quit  such  an 
attention  for  the  former,  would  be  both  prejudicial  and 
unreasonable.  For,  since  all  vocal  prayers,  in  Scripture 
and  otherwise,  were  ordained  only  to  this  end,  to  supply 
and  furnish  the  soul  that  needs,  with  good  matter  of 
affection,  by  which  it  may  be  united  to  God,  a  soul  that 
hath  already  attained  to  that  end,  which  is  union,  as 
long  as  it  lasts  ought  not  to  be  separated  therefrom, 
and  be  obliged  to  seek  a  new  means,  till  the  virtue  of 
the  former  be  spent. 

"  A  third  and  most  sublime  degree  of  attention  to 
the  Divine  Office  is,  that  whereby  vocal  prayers  do 
become  mental:  that  is,  whereby  souls  most  profoundly, 
and  with  a  perfect  simplicity  united  to  God,  can  yet, 


MINTING    MONEY.  223 


without  any  prejudice  to  such  union,  attend  also  to  the 
eense  and  spirit  of  each  passage  that  they  pronounce ; 
yea,  thereby  find  their  affection,  adhesion,  and  union, 
increased,  and  more  simplified.  This  attention  comes 
not  till  a  soul  be  arrived  to  perfect  contemplation,  by 
means  of  which  the  spirit  is  so  habitually  united  to 
God,  and  besides,  the  imagination  so  subdued  to  the 
spirit,  that  it  cannot  rest  upon  any  thing  that  will 
distract  it. 

*' Happy  are  those  souls,  of  which,  God  knows,  the 
number  is  very  small,  that  have  attained  to  this  third 
degree ;  the  which  must  be  ascended  to  by  a  careful 
practice  of  the  two  former  in  their  order,  especially  of 
the  second  degree.  And,  therefore,  in  reciting  of  the 
OflSce,  even  the  more  imperfect  souls  may  do  well, 
whensoever  they  find  themselves  in  a  good  measure 
recollected,  to  continue  so  long  as  they  well  can,  pre- 
serving as  much  stability  in  their  imagination  as  may 
be.  And  the  best  means  to  beget  and  increase  such  a 
recollected  way  of  saying  the  Divine  Office  is  the  prac- 
tice of  Internal  Prayer,  either  in  meditation  or  imme- 
diate acts  of  the  will ;  the  only  aim  and  end  whereof 
is,  the  procuring  an  immovable  attention  and  adhesion 
of  the  spirit  to  God."* 

6.  It  is  as  well  to  repeat  again,  that  we  may  thus 
offer,  in  union  with  the  merits  of  our  dear  Lord,  and 
of  all  those  sublime  supernatural  treasures  which  we 
considered  in  the  last  chapter,  not  only  our  ordinary 
actions,  but  every  thing  also  that  happens  to  us.  Our 
little  sufferings,  pains,  contradictions,  and  weariness, 
may  thus  every  one  of  them  be  made  missioners  to 

*  u.  13, 14, 15. 


li*2-l  MINTING    MONEY. 


speed  the  faith,  apostles  to  convert  sinners,  and  angels 
to  praise  the  Majesty  of  God.  Our  little  mortifications 
too,  few  and  cowardly  as  they  may  be,  with  the  stripes 
and  thorns,  the  lance  and  the  nails,  touching  them,  can 
draw  the  Heart  of  Jesus  toward  us  and  others  with  tre- 
mendous power.  The  grace  we  have  received  during 
the  day  may  be  doubled  by  being  oflfered  up  at  night  in 
union  with  His  grace  from  whom  ours  came.  Thus 
does  Jesus  help  us  to  love  Him  ;  thus  does  He  make  us 
kings  and  priests  already.  If  we  truly  mourn  because 
He  is  offended,  if  we  truly  thirst  after  the  glory  of  our 
merciful  Father,  if  we  are  touched  with  pity  for  poor, 
graceless,  or  tempted  souls,  see  what  marvels  we  can 
do  without  so  much  as  turning  out  of  our  way,  or  dis- 
tracting ourselves  from  our  business,  or  even,  so  our 
dear  Lord  has  contrived,  omitting  our  pastimes  and 
recreations.  Verily,  all  things  are  meant  for  Jesus ; 
and  when  we  see  what  we  can  do,  and,  alas !  what  we 
have  not  done,  we  may  begin  to  think  that  there  is  no 
corner  of  earth  where  the  harvest  of  God's  glory  is 
scantier  or  less  thriving  than  in  our  own  poor  hearts. 

Is  there  not  a  nursery  tale  of  some  one  who  turned 
to  gold  whatever  he  touched,  and  was  soon  embarrassed 
by  his  marvellous  gift  ?  This  is  our  case  under  the 
Gospel,  under  the  law  of  grace.  All  we  touch  turns  to 
gold,  by  intention  or  oblation.  Yet  our  gift  need  never 
embarrass  us.  We  shall  never  fill  God  with  glory,  nor 
heaven  with  merits.  But  it  will  be  a  sad  thing  at  the 
end  of  life  to  look  back  upon  the  millions  of  wasted  op- 
portunities. But  now,  some  one  may  say,  how  are  we 
to  note  them,  and  to  remember  them  now,  as  they  come 
before  us  in  such  multitudes,  and  so  incessantly  ?  I 
answer,  "  Not  by  any  rule  which  can  be  given  ;  nor  by 


MINTING   MONEY.  225 


any  formal  method  -which  can  he  devised.  You  must 
love.  You  must  love.  You  must  love.  There  is  no 
other  way.  There  is  no  help  for  it.  Love  will  teach 
you  every  thing,  and  tell  you  the  secrets  of  Jesus.  Love 
will  make  things  easy  and  sweet.  Love  will  be  a  new 
nature  to  you.  There  is  nothing  you  want  which  love 
will  not  do  for  you,  or  get  for  you,  a,^d  nothing  else  but 
love  can  do  it.  You  must  love."  And  is  it  hard  to  love 
Jesus  ?  Oh,  surely,  the  difficulty  is  not  to  love  Him ; 
the  difficulty  rather  is,  to  love  Him  little,  if  we  love 
at  all ! 

I  wish  we  could  really  see  and  feel  what  it  is  to  be 
allowed  to  please  God.  If  we  saved  the  life  of  the 
queen's  child,  we  should  not  easily  forget  the  grateful 
look  of  the  royal  mother's  face ;  it  would  be  long  be- 
fore her  burning  words  of  thanks  died  away  in  our 
ears ;  a  sovereign's  tears,  and  those  tears  of  joy,  are 
not  things  to  be  readily  forgotten.  But  what  a  very 
unimportant  thing  this  is  compared  with  being  allowed 
if  it  were  but  once  in  our  lives,  to  please  God  I  The 
thought  really  grows  upon  us  till  it  overshadows  our 
spirits.  Think  what  we  are,  our  origin,  our  rebel- 
lion, our  natural  infirmities,  our  personal  vileness, 
our  horrible  guilt,  our  despicable  unloveliness ;  and 
then  there  is  God,  the  Invisible,  all  Holy,  Incompre- 
hensible God,  and  he  stoops  to  be  pleased  with  us,  and 
He  longs  that  we  should  try  to  please  Him,  and  He 
contrives  all  nature  so  as  that  by  grace  we  may  please 
Ilim  more,  and  He  gives  us  numerous  supernatural 
ways  and  powers  of  pleasing  Him !  The  immensity  of 
this  condescension  is  simply  inexpressible.  Oh,  that 
our  dearest  Lord  would  enlarge  our  hearts,  that  we 
mi prht  take  it  in !  But  why  talk  of  taking  in  one  of  His 
P 


(uiriVBRsiTr 


226  MINTING   MONEY. 


condescensions  ?  Why,  he  makes  our  hearts  large 
enough  to  take  Himself  in,  Body,  Soul,  Divinity  !  Thus 
our  thoughts  run  oflf  to  another  condescension,  another 
love.  This  is  always  the  way  ;  one  overtops  another ; 
there  is  no  end ;  climb  one  height,  and  there  are  higher 
heights  ;  and  all  is  love !  love !  love !  Dear  God !  dear 
God !  St.  Gertrude  said  we  might  call  Him  so  !  and 
what  else  can  we  call  Him  ?  Oh,  why  do  we  not  lovo 
Him?  Most  dear  God!  So  dear  beyond  word  or 
thought ! 

If  we  think  of  these  three  things,  God,  ourselves,  and 
the  supernaturalness  of  the  system  in  which  we  are, 
we  shall  surely  at  length  come  to  see  that  the  capabili- 
ties we,  who  are  neither  saints,  nor  like  saints,  nor  in 
sight  of  being  saints,  have  of  glorifying  God  are  posi- 
tively awful  and  frightening.  First,  if  we  unite  our 
actions  with  those  of  Jesus,  they  gain  almost  an  infinite 
value.  What  we  have  to  offer  to  God  is  something  like 
infinite.  Nay,  we  can  offer  Jesus,  who  is  infinite.  We 
can  offer  God  His  Equal !  and  that  in  every  thing  we 
do,  or  say,  or  think,  or  suffer.  Next,  consider  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  our  actions.  There  is  no  reckoning  them. 
They  run  ahead  of  our  figures  almost  at  once.  Two 
men  are  advised  to  get  up  early  in  the  morning  to  make 
half  an  hour's  meditation.  One  does,  and  the  other 
does  not.  The  one  who  does,  merits,  and  so  glorifies 
God  more,  unspeakably  more  than  all  physical  science 
or  art  unions  have  glorified  Him  since  the  Flood ;  1, 
by  the  mortification  of  rising  early  ;  2,  by  his  modesty 
in  dressing ;  3,  by  his  act  of  the  Presence  of  God  ;  4, 
by  his  sign  of  the  cross :  5,  by  his  preparatory  prayers ; 
6,  by  his  meditation ;  7,  by  the  penance  of  his  posture, 
weariness  or  distraction ;  8,  by  the  resolutions  at  the 


MINTING   MONEY.  227 


,  end ;  9,  by  each  ejaculation  all  through  it ;  and  10,  by 
the  obedience  of  the  whole  duty.  It  •would  be  more 
correct  to  say  that  each  of  these  ten  merits  were  bun- 
dles of  many  merits.  But  put  them  at  ten.  This  one 
little  practice  would  give  the  following  results.  In 
each  year  he  would  glorify  God  three  thousand  six 
hundred  and  fifty  times  by  that  one  action,  and  each 
of  these  times  he  would  please  God,  and  to  be  allowed 
to  do  so  once  in  all  eternity  would  be  an  unspeakable 
condescension,  and  each  time  he  would  glorify  Him 
more  than  all  physical  science  has  ever  done,  because 
he  would  glorify  Him  supernaturally. 

After  the  multiplicity  of  our  actions,  consider  the 
ease  of  this  devotion  of  offering  them  up  to  God  in 
union  with  the  merits  of  His  Son.  One  glance  at- Je- 
sus, and  it  is  done.  There  needs  no  word,  no  sigh,  no 
train  of  thought.  Love  looks  to  Jesus,  and  all  is  ac- 
complished. Then  remember,  each  merit  implies  a  new 
degree  of  grace,  and  each  degree  of  grace  a  correspond- 
ing degree  of  eternal  glory,  if  we  die  with  the  gift  of 
perseverance.  Eye  has  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor 
heart  conceived  one  single  degree  of  beatific  glory ; 
and  then  we  have  to  multiply  all  this  millions  and  mil- 
lions of  times ;  and  if  we  fell  into  deadly  sin,  and  then 
had  the  grace  to  ask,  just  to  ask  contritely,  and  in  our 
Lord's  own  easy  way,  for  the  Precious  Blood,  Jesus 
thinks  it  nothing  merely  to  forgive  us,  but  He  must  also 
put  back  to  our  account  all  this  formidable  sum  total 
of  merits  ;  so  passionately  does  He  long  to  have  us  with 
Him  in  heaven  for  ever !  And  yet  there  are  such  things 
as  lukewarm  Catholics  I  My  Jesus !  and  how  pa- 
tiently Thou  bearest  with  them  I  Thou  hast  covered 
the  whole  earth  with  a  net  of  love,  which  Thou  hast 


228  MINTING   MONEY. 


been  busily  devising  from  all  eternity!  We  break  it 
all  to  pieces,  and  what  dost  Thou  do,  sweetest,  dearest, 
kindest  Lord  ?  Thou  settest  to  work  with  the  most  un- 
conquerable love  to  net  a  new  one  of  merciful  precept 
and  cheerful  fear,  .and  catchest  in  that  the  foolish  souls 
that  would  not  be  caught  by  love  I 

Oh,  how  sweet  it  is  to  be  saved  by  Jesus !  it  seems 
as  if  it  were  better  than  if  we  had  never  fallen.  It  is 
such  a  joy  to  owe  every  thing  to  Jesus.  Such  a  joy 
not  to  be  able  to  do  without  Him  for  one  moment. 
Such  a  joy  to  find  Him  everywhere,  and  always  to  find 
Him  laying  us  under  new  obligations,  and  binding  us 
with  fresh  chains  of  love  !  Oh,  that  we  were  bound  so 
fast  to  Him  that  we  could  never  get  loose  from  Him ! 
But  this  is  the  heavenliness  of  purgatory,  that  we  are 
His,  His  own.  His  very  own,  unalterably,  for  ever ! 
Surely  Adam's  nine  hundred  years  of  penance  among 
the  brambles  of  the  lonely  world  would  be  worth  liv 
ing,  if  only  we  might  be  allowed  to  make  one  heart 
love  Jesus  a  single  degree  more !  And  yet  here  we 
are  in  His  blessed  Church,  where  the  beginning, 
middle,  and  end  of  our  whole  religion  is,  that  all 
things  are  ours,  and  we  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is 
God's! 

If  there  is  one  thing  more  inexpressibly  touching 
than  another,  it  is  God,  the  Everlasting  Holiness,  beg- 
ging glory  of  His  creatures  on  His  own  earth.  The 
love  it  breeds  is  sharp  as  a  smart.  It  is  like  a  father 
suflfering  martyrdom  for  his  guilty  child.  And  then 
to  see  Him,  the  suppliant  Creator,  the  Almighty  men- 
dicant, refused  the  alms  He  asks !  Does  it  not  make 
us  wild  ?  Wild  with  love  ?  And  who  refuses  Him  so 
often  as  ourselves  ?    Alas  !  who  will  give  to  our  eyes 


MINTING   MONEY.  229 


rivers  of  tears  to  weep  day  and  night  for  this? 
Verily  it  is  more  inconceivable  that  men  should  not 
love  God  than  that  there  should  be  Three  Persons  in 
One  God !  And  yet,  what  can  be  more  winning  than 
God,  what  more  fatherly  than  God  ?  He  asks  glory  of 
us,  asks  glory  of  us,  such  as  we  are !  Why,  why 
do  we  not  love  Him  ?  What  can  He  do  more  ?  He 
asked  that  Himself  ages  ago :  What  can  I  do  that  I 
have  not  done?  Yes,  what  can  He  do  more?  Oh, 
look  children  of  God,  look  !  He  is  in  His  own  world, 
behaving  and  arranging  all,  blessed  be  His  most  dear 
Majesty!  just  as  if  we,  not  He,  were  the  final  cause  of 
all  creation  I 


CHAPTJ5fl  VII- 

T  is  plain  that  what  has  been  in- 
sisted upon  in  the  foregoing  chap- 
ters comes  to  this,  that  the  Gospel 
being  altogether  a  law  of  love,  it 
is  not  enough  simply  to  save  our 
own  souls,  or  to  be  more  accurate, 
it  is  very  much  against  our  saving 
our  own  souls,  if  we  do  not  try  to  do 
something  for  the  souls  of  others, 
whether  by  action  or  by  prayer.  And, 
furthermore,  the  Gospel  being  a  law  of 
love,  our  religion  must  be  as  much  as 
possible  a  service  of  love,  and  conse- 
quently we  run  a  great  risk  of  being 
lost  if  we  treat  this  life  as  simply  an  oppor- 
tunity of  getting  to  heaven  on  the  easiest 
terms,  and  hy  she  barest  observance  of 
necessary  precepts,  putting  aside  as  things 
which  do  not  concern  ourselves,  the  glory  of  God,  the 
interests  of  Jesus,  and  the  saving  of  souls.  I  have  not 
asked  much  of  you  ;  I  have  not  put  before  you  either 
bodily  austerities  or  retirement  from  the  world ;  I  have 
not  told  you  to  aim  at  heights  of  supernatural  prayer, 

230 


THANKSGIVIMJ.  231 

or  at  the  love  of  suffering,  or  at  any  difficult  life-long 
strain  after  interior  recollection  and  the  sensible 
Presence  of  God.  I  have  done  no  more  than  put 
before  you  practices  and  counsels  of  the  saints  by 
which  you  may  occupy  yourselves  more  vf^ith  God,  and 
do  so  easily  and  lovingly.  I  have  not  even  said.  You 
shall  at  least  do  so  much  as  this,  or.  This  you  must 
certainly  not  omit ;  I  have  left  it  to  yourselves  and  to 
your  own  love.  I  am  not  making  rules ; .  I  would  fain 
persuade  some  one,  one  would  be  enough,  to  love  God 
a  little  more  for  His  own  dear  sake.  And  the  order 
of  my  subject  naturally  leads  me  now  to  the  subject 
of  thanksgiving.  We  have  seen  that  in  order  to  prac- 
tise intercession,  our  Blessed  Lord,  in  His  unspeakable 
love,  first  gives  us  all  His  own  treasures  that  we  may 
offer  them  back  to  Him  with  amazing  efficacy,  and 
then,  besides  that,  allows  us  to  make  our  own  most 
trivial  actions  almost  infinite  by  uniting  them  to  Hia 
merits  and  intentions.  But  these  two  things  are  not 
available  for  intercession  only  ;  they  serve  equally  for 
thanksgiving,  and  for  praise  and  desire.  I  will  speak 
in  this  chapter  of  thanksgiving;  and  then  of  praise 
and  desire  in  the  next. 

If  we  had  to  name  any  one  thing  which  seems  unac- 
countably to  have  fallen  out  of  most  men's  practical 
religion  altogether,  it  would  be  the  duty  of  thanks- 
giving. It  would  not  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the 
common  neglect  of  this  duty.  There  is  little  enough 
of  prayer;  but  there  is  still  less  thanksgiving.  Foi 
every  million  of  Paters  and  Aves,  which  rise  up  from 
the  earth  to  avert  evils  or  to  ask  graces,  how  many  do 
you  suppose  follow  after  in  thanksgiving  for  the  evils 
averted  or  the  graces  given?     Alas!  it  is  not  hard  to 


2tJ!2  THANKSGIVING. 


find  the  reason  of  this.  Our  own  interests  drive  us 
obviously  to  prayer ;  but  it  is  love  alone  which  leads 
to  thanksgiving.  A  man  who  only  wants  to  avoid  hell 
knows  that  he  must  pray;  he  has  no  such  strong 
instinct  impelling  him  to  thanksgiving.  It  is  the  old 
story.  Never  did  prayer  come  more  from  the  heart 
than  the  piteous  cry  of  those  ten  lepers  who  beheld 
Jesus  entering  into  a  town.  Their  desire  to  be  heard 
made  them  courteous  and  considerate.  They  stood  afar 
off,  lest  He  should  be  angry  if  they  with  their  foul 
disease  came  too  near  Him.  Alas  !  they  did  not  truly 
know  that  dear  Lord,  nor  how  He  had  lowered  Him- 
self to  be  counted  as  a  leper  for  the  sons  of  men. 
They  lifted  up  their  voice,  saying,  "Jesus,  Master, 
have  mercy  on  us."  When  the  miracle  was  wrought, 
the  nine  went  on  in  selfish  joy  to  show  themselves  to 
the  priest;  but  one,  only  one,  and  he  an  outcast 
Samaritan,  when  he  saw  that  he  was  made  clean,  went 
back,  with  a  loud  voice  glorifying  God,  and  he  fell  on 
his  face  before  our  Saviour's  feet,  giving  thanks. 
Even  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus  was  distressed,  and  as 
it  were  astonished,  and  He  said,  "  Were  not  ten  made 
clean?  and  where  are  the  nine?  There  is  no  one 
found  to  return  and  give  glory  to  God,  but  this  stran- 
ger V  How  many  a  time  have  we  not  caused  the  same 
sad  surprise  to  the  Sacred  Heart ! 

When  the  neglect  of  a  duty  is  so  shocking  as  is  surely 
the  neglect  of  thanksgiving,  it  is  desirable  to  show  the 
amount  of  obligation  which  rests  upon  us  in  the  mat- 
ter ;  and  this  can  best  be  done  by  the  authority  of 
Scripture.     St.  Paul  tells  the  Ephesians*  that  we  are  to 

*  V.  20. 


THANKSG1\ING.  233 


be  "giving  thanks  always  for  all  things,  in  the  name 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  to  God  and  the  Father." 
Again,  we  are*  **  to  abound  unto  all  simplicity,  which 
worketh  through  us  thanksgiving  to  God."  The  Phi- 
lippiansf  are  admonished,  "  Be  nothing  solicitous :  but 
in  every  thing  by  prayer  and  supplication  with  thanks- 
giving let  your  petitions  be  made  known  to  God."  To 
the  ColossiansJ  the  apostle  says,  "As  ye  have  received 
Jesus  Christ  the  Lord,  walk  ye  in  Him,  rooted  and 
built  up  in  Him,  and  confirmed  in  the  faith,  as  also 
you  have  learned,  abounding  in  Him  with  thanksgiv- 
ing ;"  and  again, ^  "  Be  instant  in  prayer ;  watching  in 
it  in  thanksgiving."  Creatures  are  said||  to  be  created 
to  be  received  with  thanksgiving  by  the  faithful,  and 
by  them  that  have  known  the  truth ;  "  for  every  crea- 
ture of  God  is  good,  and  nothing  to  be  rejected,  that  is 
received  with  thanksgiving."  And  it  was  the  very  cha- 
racteristic of  the  heathen,^  that  "  when  they  knew  God, 
they  glorified  Him  not  as  God,  nor  gave  thanks." 

What  is  our  life  on  earth  but  a  preparation  for  our 
real  life  in  heaven  ?  and  yet  praise  and  thanksgiving  are 
the  very  occupatioos  of  our  life  in  heaven.  What  is  the 
language  of  the  angels,  ancients,  and  living  creatures 
of  the  apocalypse,  but,  "  Amen  !  Benediction  and  glory, 
and  wisdom,  and  thanksgiving,  honour  and  power,  and 
strength  to  our  God  for  ever  and  ever :  Amen  ?"  We 
are  constantly  invoking  our  Blessed  Lady,  the  angels, 
and  the  saints,  and  we  know  and  are  sure  that  they 
are  always  praying  for  us  in  heaven ;  yet  am  I  not  right 
in  saying,  that  when  we  make  pictures  of  heaven 
in  our  own  minds,  it  is  not  so  often  prayer  we  picture. 


*2Cor.  Ix.  11.    tiv.  6.    Jii.  7.     giv.2.     1|  1  Tim.  iv.  3.    ^  Rom.  i.  21. 
20* 


234  THANKSGIVING. 


as  praise  and  thanksgiving?  Nay,  sometimes  when 
death  has  been  at  hand,  the  life  of  heaven  has  cast  its 
light  forward  over  God's  servants ;  they  have  seemed 
almost  to  forget  prayer,  and,  as  if  they  were  already  in 
hearing  of  the  angelic  songs,  and  had  caught  the  note, 
they  occupy  with  thanksgiving  those  awful  hours 
which  most  of  all  in  life  seem  to  need  petition  and 
struggling  prayer.  Thus  when  the  blessed  Paul  of  the 
Cross  was  lying  dangerously  ill,  he  passed  his  days  in 
the  utterance  of  thanksgiving  and  praise,  often  repeat- 
ing with  particular  devotion  those  words  from  the  Glo- 
ria in  excelsis,  "  We  give  thanks  to  Thee  for  Thy  great 
glory  I"  This  had  always  been  his  favourite  ejacula- 
tion, and  he  had  frequently  exhorted  his  religious  to 
use  it  whenever  they  had  any  particular  undertaking 
in  hand,  saying,  with  peculiar  earnestness,  "  For  the 
great  glory  of  God."  At  other  times,  prostrating  him- 
self in  spirit  before  the  throne  of  the  Most  Blessed  Tri- 
nity, he  fervently  exclaimed,  *'  Sanctus,  Sanctus,"  or 
"  Benedictio  et  claritas,"  &c.,  which  he  used  to  call  the 
song  of  paradise. 

Now,  the  Church  on  earth  reflects  the  Church  in 
heaven  ;  the  worship  of  the  one  is  the  echo  of  the  wor- 
ship of  the  other.  If  the  life  in  heaven  is  one  of  praise 
and  thanksgiving,  so  in  its  measure  must  be  the  life 
on  earth.  The  very  centre  of  all  our  worship  is  the 
Eucharist ;  that  is,  as  the  word  imports,  a  sacrifice  of 
thanksgiving.  Every  thing  catches  its  tone  from  this. 
Every  thing  in  the  Church  radiates  out  from  the 
Blessed  Sacrament.  The  spirit  of  the  Eucharist  must 
be  found  everywhere.  Even  the  Jews  felt  that  all 
prayer  must  one  day  cease,  except  the  prayer  of  thanks- 
giving, as  Wetstein  tells  us  out  of  the  Talmud.    But  wo 


THANKSGIVING.  285 


nave  to  do  with  it  noAv  as  part  of  our  service  of  love. 
Let  us  suppose  that  the  true  idea  of  worship  was  the 
one  implied  In  the  common  practice  of  most  men ;  that 
it  was  simply  a  matter  of  prayer  to  a  superior  Beinp". 
What  relation  does  this  put  us  in  with  God  ?  He  is  our 
King,  our  Superior,  a  keeper  of  treasures,  Himself  in 
finite  wealth.  We  go  to  Him  to  ask  for  something.  H< 
is  to  us  what  a  rich  man  is  to  a  beggar.  Our  own  in 
terest  is  the  prominent  part  of  the  matter.  Or  we  art 
afraid  of  His  justice.  We  desire  to  be  let  off  our  pu- 
nishment, and  have  our  sins  forgiven.  He  is  pitiful, 
and  will  hear  us  if  we  are  importunate.  Taking  prayer 
only  as  the  whole  of  worship,  we  can  rise  no  higher 
than  this.  It  is  all  very  true,  and  very  necessary  be- 
sides. Prayer  can  teach  us  to  depend  on  God,  and  an- 
swered prayer  to  trust  in  Him.  But  Infinite  Goodness 
will  not  let  us  rest  on  such  terms  with  Him.  We  are 
to  be  with  Him  to  all  eternity  ;  He  is  to  be  our  ever- 
lasting joy  ;  to  know  Him  and  to  love  Him  is  life  ;  and 
the  love  of  Him  is  the  joyful  praise  of  Him  for  ever. 
As  the  spirit  of  oblation,  the  permission  to  make  God 
presents,  at  once  brings  in  a  dearer  and  more  fi\miliar 
relation  with  God,  so  also  does  the  spirit  of  thanksgiv- 
ing. To  thank  a  benefactor  simply  to  get  more  from 
him,  is  not  thanksgiving,  but  a  flattering  form  of  peti- 
tion. We  thank  God  because  we  love  Him,  because 
His  love  of  us  touches  us,  surprises  us,  melts  us,  wins 
us.  Indeed,  so  much  is  thanksgiving  a  matter  of  love, 
that  we  shall  thank  Him  most  of  all  in  heaven,  when 
He  has  given  us  His  crowning  gift  of  the  Beatific  Vi- 
sion ;  when  He  has  given  us  all  of  Himself  we  can  con- 
tain, and  so  there  is  nothing  left  for  us  to  receive. 
Thanksgiving  is,  therefore,  of  the  very  essence  of  Ca- 


236  THANKSGIVING. 


tholic  worship  ;  and  as  the  practice  of  it  increases  our 
love,  so  does  the  neglect  of  it  betoken  how  little  love 
we  have. 

Ah !  if  we  have  reason  to  pity  God,  if  we  may  dare 
so  to  speak  with  St.  Alphonso,  because  men  sin  againet 
His  loving  Majesty,  still  more  reason  have  we  to  do  so 
when  we  see  how  scanty  and  how  cold  are  the  thanks 
givings  offered  up  to  Ilim.  Nothing  is  so  odious  among 
men  as  ingratitude ;  yet  it  is  the  daily  and  hourly  por- 
tion of  Almighty  God.  There  is  no  telling  what  lie 
has  done  for  men  ;  there  is  no  exhausting  the  mines  of 
His  abundant  mercy  implied  by  each  one  of  his  titles, 
Creator,  King,  Redemer,  Father,  Shepherd.  He  loves 
to  be  thanked,  because  all  Ho  wants  of  us  is  love,  and 
that  He  should  please  to  want  it  is  itself  an  infinite 
act  of  love.  He  had  chosen  to  put  His  glory  upon  our 
gratitude  ;  and  yet  we  will  not  give  it  Him  !  What  is 
worst  of  all,  this  affront  does  not  come,  like  open  sin, 
from  those  who  are  His  enemies,  and  in  whose  conver- 
sion His  compassion  can  gain  such  glory  among  men ; 
but  it  comes  from  His  own  people,  from  those  who  fre- 
quent the  sacraments  and  make  a  profession  of  piety, 
from  those  whom  He  is  daily  loading  with  the  especial 
and  intimate  gifts  of  His  Holy  Spirit.  Many  of  us  are 
shocked  with  sin  and  sacrilege  ;  we  go  sad  and  down- 
cast in  the  days  of  the  world's  carnival ;  scandal  makes 
us  smart ;  heresy  is  positive  suffering,  a  pungent  bit- 
terness, like  smoke  in  our  eyes.  It  is  well.  Yet  we  too 
go  on  refusing  God  His  glory  by  our  neglect  of  thanks- 
giving. We  could  glorify  Him  so  chiefly  :  and  yet  it 
hardly  comes  into  our  thoughts.  Can  we  then  be  said 
to  love  Him  truly  and  really  ?  What  have  we  to  do, 
how  often  shall  I  say  it?     To  love  God,  and  to  get  Him 


THANKSGIVING.  237 


glory.  God  forbid  we  should  so  much  as  dream  that 
we  had  any  thing  else  to  do.  Let  us  go  then  about  the 
world  seeking  these  neglected  pearls  of  our  heavenly 
Father's  glory,  and  offering  them  to  Ilim.  How  is  it 
that  we  have  the  heart  tf  wish  to  do  any  thing  but  this  ? 
Some  of  His  servants  have  even  desired  not  to  die,  that 
they  might  stay  on  earth  to  glorify  Him  by  more  suf^ 
fering.  Such  wishes  are  not  for  us  ;  but  they  may  do 
us  good,  for  they  help  to  show  us  how  little  love  we 
have.  And  I  must  think  that  to  find  this  out  is  every 
thing.  I  can  believe  that  men  are  deceived,  and  think 
they  love  God  when  they  do  not  love  Him,  or  that  they 
wish  to  love  Him  and  do  not  know  how.  But  can  any 
one  knoAV  how  little  he  loves  God,  and  how  easily  he 
can  love  Him  more,  and  yet  not  wish  to  do  so  ?  Jesua 
died  to  prevent  the  possibility  of  this  ;  and  can  He  have 
died  in  vain? 

You  must  bear  with  me  if  I  repeat  this  once  more. 
We  do  not  find  fiiult  with  sinners  who  are  living  out 
of  the  grace  of  God,  and  away  from  the  Sacraments, 
because  they  do  not  make  thanksgiving.  They  have 
something  else  to  do.  They  have  to  do  penance,  and 
to  reconcile  themselves  with  God,  and  wash  their  souls 
afresh  in  the  Precious  Blood  of  Jesus.  The  neglect  of 
thanksgiving  is  an  ingratitude  which  our  dear  Lord  has 
to  impute  to  his  own  forgiven  children,  who  are  living 
in  His  peace,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  all  His  privileges. 
Now  this  deserves  to  be  especially  noted.  I  do  not 
know  if  you  Avill  agree  with  me,  but  to  my  mind  the 
faults  of  good  people,  I  do  not  mean  slips  and  infirmities, 
but  cold,  heartless  faults,  have  something  specially  odious 
about  them.  A  sin  is  not  so  shocking  a  thing  to  look 
at,  for  all  its  intrinsic  deadliness ;  and  this  may  be  the 


238  THANKSGIVING. 


reason  why,  in  the  Apocalypse,  God  breaks  out  with 
such  unusual  and  vivid  language  about  lukewarmnesa 
and  tepidity.  When  the  angels  asked  our  Lord  as  lie 
ascended,  AVhat  are  those  wounds  in  Thy  hands  ?  how 
much  is  insinuated  in  His  reply,  The  wounds  wherewith 
I  was  wounded  in  the  house  of  My  friends  !  It  would 
be  worth  while  writing  a  treatise,  entitled,  On  the  Sins 
of  Good  People ;  for  they  are  many  and  various,  and 
have  a  peculiar  malice  and  hatefulness  of  their  own. 
Unthankfulness  is  one  of  the  chief  of  them.  At  least, 
then,  bear  this  in  mind  while  we  are  talking  of  thanks- 
giving. Here  is  a  matter  which  has  to  do  entirely  with 
good  Catholics,  with  men  and  women  who  pray  and 
frequent  the  sacraments,  and  form  the  devout  portion 
of  our  congregations.  If  there  be  any  reproach  in  the 
matter,  it  all  lies  on  them.  Really,  it  is  almost  a  com- 
fort to  be  able  to  say  this.  Dry  people  are  ordinarily 
so  self-righteous,  that  it  is,  I  repeat,  a  positive  comfort 
to  get  them  up  into  a  corner,  and  to  be  able  to  say  to 
them.  Now  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  sinners  at  pre- 
sent: you  cannot  put  the  sharp  things  upon  them:  you 
are  the  guilty  people ;  the  reproof  is  all  for  you  ;  here 
is  something  which,  if  you  do  not  do,  and  do  well,  for 
God,  you  are  a  wretch ;  wretch,  you  know,  is  the  very 
word,  the  acknowledged  epithet  for  the  ungrateful ; 
well !  and  with  all  your  prayers  and  sacraments,  you  do 
not  do  it.  It  is  an  ugly  inference  you  Avill  have  to 
draw.  Yet  why  not  take  a  good  heart,  both  you  and  I, 
and  say  an  honest  Confiteor,  and  arrange  with  God  for 
a  little  more  grace,  and  then  He  shall  see  how  different 
our  future  practice  is  to  be?  From  the  particular 
faults  of  good  people,  deliver  us,  0  Lord !  There  are 
sacraments  for  sin,  for  lukewarmness  there  are  none. 


THANKSGIVING.  tZBO 


Who  does  not  know,  that  has  ever  ministered  to  souls, 
how  even  frequent  communion  hardens  tepid  hearts  ? 
Have  you  ever  known  ten  persons  plunged  in  luke- 
warmness,  who  were  cured?  and  what  was  it  that  cured 
nine  out  of  the  ten?  The  shame  that  followed  falls 
into  downright  sin  I  Alas  I  this  is  a  desperate  game  to 
play,  to  expect  the  prisons  of  hell  to  do  the  work  of  tho 
medicines  of  heaven,  and  stake  eternity  on  tho  experi- 
ment ! 

The  Bible  is  a  revelation  of  love;  hut  it  is  not  the 
only  one.  There  is  to  each  one  of  us  a  special  and  per- 
sonal revelation  of  Divine  Love  in  the  retrospect  of  that 
Fatherly  Providence  which  has  watched  over  us  through 
our  lives.  Who  can  look  back  on  the  long  chain  of 
graces  of  which  his  life  has  been  composed  since  the 
hour  of  his  baptism,  without  a  feeling  of  surprise  at  the 
unweariedness  and  minuteness  of  God's  love  ?  The  way 
in  which  things  have  been  arranged  for  his  happiness 
or  his  welfare,  obstacles  disappearing  as  he  drew  nigh 
to  them,  and,  just  when  they  seemed  most  insurmount- 
able, tfimptations  turning  to  his  good,  and  what  seemed 
chastisements  as  he  faced  them,  changing  to  love  when 
he  looked  back  upon  them.  Every  sorroAV  has  found 
its  place  in  his  life,  and  he  would  have  been  a  loser  if 
he  hnd  been  without  it.  Chance  acquaintances  have 
had  their  meaning,  and  done  their  work ;  and  somehoAV 
it  se«ms  as  if  foreseeing  love  itself  could  not  have  woven 
his  web  of  life  differently  from  what  it  is,  even  if  it  had 
woven  it  of  love  alone.  He  did  not  feel  it  at  the  time. 
He  did  not  know  God  was  so  much  with  him  :  for  what 
more  unostentatious  than  a  Father's  love  ?  When  Jacob 
Dinde  his  pillow  of  the  cold  stones,  and  lay  down  to  sleep, 
where  he  had  his  vision  of  the  ladder,  he  saw  nothing 


24C  THANKSGIVINQ. 


uncommon  in  the  place ;  but  when  he  awoke  out  of 
Bleep,  he  said,  "  Indeed,  the  Lord  is  in  this  place,  and 
I  knew  it  hot."  When  Moses  desired  to  see  God,  the 
Lord  set  him  in  a  hole  of  the  rock,  and  protected  him 
with  his  right  hand  while  His  intolerable  glory  was 
passing  by,  and  He  said,  "  I  will  take  away  My  hand, 
and  thou  shalt  see  My  back ;  but  My  Face  thou  canst 
not  see."  This  is  ever  God's  way.  He  is  with  us, 
tender,  loving,  considerate,  forgiving.  Our  hearts  burn 
within  us,  as  did  the  hearts  of  the  two  disciples  as 
they  walked  and  talked  with  Jesus  on  the  road  to 
Emmaus  ;  but  it  is  not  until  He  vanishes  from  our 
sight,  that  we  know  of  a  truth  that  it  was  our  dear 
Lord  Himself. 

Thus  it  is  that  we  can  only  come  to  know  God  by 
meditation.  We  must  ponder  things  as  Mary  did.  Wo 
must  muse  and  be  pensive  as  Isaac  was.  We  must 
treasure  up  God's  mercies,  and  make  much  of  them, 
and  set  store  by  them,  as  did  Jacob  and  David.  Jacob 
was  always  looking  back  on  his  adventurous  life  ;  God 
was  to  him  the  God  of  Bethel,  the  God  of  Abraham, 
the  Fear  of  Isaac.  And  what  is  David's  reproach  to 
his  people  but  that  they  forgot  God  who  had  done  great 
things  in  Egypt,  wondrous  works  in  the  land  of  Cham, 
and  terrible  things  in  the  Red  Sea  ?  The  blessings  that 
we  know  of  are  more  than  enough  to  kindle  the  most 
fervent  love.  And  yet  we  shall  never  know  the  half 
until  the  day  of  judgment.  Who  are  we  that  God 
should  have  been  thus  legislating  for  us,  and  laying 
Himself  out  to  please  us  ?  Has  He  had  no  world  to 
govern  ?  Has  He  had  no  creatures  but  our  own  poor 
selves,  or  none  wiser,  holier,  lovelier?  And  yet  we 
tease  ourselves  about  predestination  and  eternal  punish- 


TUANKSOIVING.  241 


ment.  "We  reason  harshly  about  what  wo  cannot  alter, 
and  do  not  understand.  I  must  think  this  is  most 
unreasonable.  For  look  how  the  case  stands.  We 
know  an  immense  deal  about  God,  yet  little  or  nothing 
beyond  what  He  has  been  pleased  Himself  to  reveal  to 
us.  Hence  when  we  argue  against  Him,  our  arguments 
are  in  reality  founded,  not  so  much  upon  what  we  see, 
as  upon  what  He  has  been  so  good  as  to  tell  us  about 
Himself.  Now,  here  we  ought  to  observe,  and  people 
for  the  most  part  do  not  observe  it,  that  God  has  chiefly 
illuminated  for  us  His  mercy  and  condescension.  His 
severity  is  not  only  the  dark  side  of  His  most  dread 
Majesty,  because  of  its  fearfulness,  but  also  because  He 
has  told  us  so  little  about  it.  When  love  is  in  question, 
He  has  been  copious,  explicit,  minute.  He  explains, 
He  repeats.  He  gives  reasons.  He  argues.  He  persuades, 
He  complains.  He  invites.  He  allures.  He  magnifies 
Of  His  rigour  He  drops  but  a  word  now  and  then. 
He  puts  it  out  as  a  fact,  and  leaves  it.  He  startles  by 
an  abrupt  disclosure,  but  as  He  only  startled  out  of 
love.  He  is  at  no  pains  to  explain,  to  soften,  to  harmo- 
nize. Nay,  the  most  startling  expressions  about  His 
judgments  are  rather  outbursts  from  His  astonished 
creatures,  Job,  Isaias,  Peter,  or  Paul,  than  revelations 
from  Himself.  This  very  fact  is  itself  a  fresh  instance  of 
His  love.  Can  we  not  take  the  hint  which  His  merci- 
ful wisdom  vouchsafes  to  give  us  by  this  method  of 
proceeding?  As  we  see  but  one  side  of  the  moon,  so 
we  see  but  one  side  of  God :  and  what  can  we  know  of 
what  we  do  not  see  ?  There  is  no  end  to  the  variety 
of  the  disclosures  of  His  goodness,  the  inventions  of  His 
compassion,  and  the  strangeness  of  His  yearning  over 
His  own  creatures  He  has  striven  to  fix  our  gaze 
Q  21 


242  TIIANKSGIVINQ. 


upon  those,  but  we  will  not  have  it  so.  ^Ye  are  busiest 
with  what  He  wishes  us  to  think  least  of.  And  we 
neglect  to  ponder  all  those  numberless  signs  of  our 
Heavenly  Father's  love,  which  are  personal  things 
between  Him  and  ourselves ;  positive  and  sensible 
touches  of  His  unutterable  affection !  Oh,  while  Gcd 
is  turning  every  thing  to  love,  and  contriving  every  thing 
for  love,  how  perversely  are  we  trying  to  thwart  His 
tenderness  and  long-suffering  !  Consider  what  it  is  to 
be  blessed  by  God.  Put  yourself  into  the  scales,  and 
weigh  yourself  against  Him ;  and  then  see  what  it  is 
to  be  thought  of  by  Him,  to  occupy  His  attention,  to 
try  His  patience,  to  call  out  His  love !  Truly,  the  very 
thought  of  God  is  a  bed  on  which  we  can  lie  down  and 
rest  whenever  we  choose.  The  remembrance  of  His 
uncontrolled  Sovereignty  is  a  joy  to  us  greater  than  the 
vision  of  an  angel,  brighter  than  Mary's  face,  even  when 
it  shall  smile  its  **  Welcome  to  Heaven''  on  our  purified 
and  forgiven  souls.  That  He  is  such  a  God  as  He  is, 
is  more,  far  more  than  rest ;  it  is  joy  and  bliss.  That 
He  has  loved  us  with  an  eternal  love,  and  is  our  own 
dearest  Father,  is  joy  which  has  no  name.  It  is  hea- 
ven begun  already  upon  earth  !  Is  it  not  then  one  of 
the  wonders  of  the  world  that  there  should  be  so  little 
thanksgiving,  a  greater  wonder  even  than  that  there 
should  be  so  little  prayer,  and  almost  as  great  a  wonder 
as  that  God  should  love  us  so  unutterably  ? 

A  spirit  of  thanksgiving  has  been  in  all  ages  tho 
characteristic  of  the  Saints.  Thanksgiving  has  been 
their  favourite  prayer ;  and  when  their  love  has  been 
grieved  because  men  were  unthankful,  they  have  called 
on  the  animals,  and  even  on  inanimate  creatures,  to 
bless  God  for  His  goodness.     St.  Lawrence  Justinian 


THANKSGIVING.  243 


has  a  beautiful  passage  on  thanksgiving  in  his  Treatise 
on  Obedience  :*  "Whosoever  should  try  to  lay  open  all 
Gc  d's  blessings  to  the  full,  would  be  like  a  man  trying 
to  confine  in  a  little  vase  the  mighty  currents  of  the 
wide  ocean ;  for  that  were  an  easier  work  than  to  pub- 
lish with  human  eloquence  the  innumerable  gifts  of 
God.  Yet  though  these  are  unspeakable  both  from 
their  multitude,  their  magnitude,  and  their  incompre- 
hensibility, they  are  by  no  means  to  be  concealed  in 
silence,  or  left  without  commemoration,  though  it  be 
impossible  to  commemorate  them  adequately.  They 
are  to  be  confessed  with  the  mouth,  revered  in  the 
heart,  and  religiously  worshipped,  as  far  as  the  little- 
ness of  man  can  do  so.  For  though  we  cannot  explain 
them  in  words,  we  can  make  acknowledgment  of  them 
in  the  pious  and  enlarged  affection  of  our  hearts.  In- 
deed, the  immense  Mercy  of  our  Eternal  Creator  conde- 
scends to  approve  not  only  what  man  can  do,  but  what 
he  would  desire  to  do;  for  the  merits  of  the  just  are 
counted  up  by  the  Most  High,  not  only  in  the  doing 
of  the  work,  but  in  the  desire  of  the  will."  In  one  of 
the  revelations  of  St.  Catherine  of  Siena,  God  the  Father 
tells  her  that  thanksgiving  makes  the  soul  incessantly 
delight  in  Him,  that  it  frees  men  from  negligence  and 
lukewarmness  altogether,  and  makes  them  anxious  to 
please  Him  more  and  more  in  all  things.  Our  Lord 
gives  the  increase  of  thanksgiving  as  a  reason  to  St. 
Bridget  for  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass.  "My  Body," 
says  He,  "is  daily  immolated  on  the  altar,  that  men 
may  love  Me  so  much  the  more,  and  more  frequently 
call  to  mind  My  blessings."    "  Happy  is  he,"  says  St. 

*  Cap.  23. 


24  4  THANKSGIVING. 


Bernard,  "who,  at  every  grace  he  receives,  returns  in 
thought  to  Ilim  in  -whom  is  the  fullness  of  all  graces ; 
for  if  we  show  ourselves  not  ungrateful  for  what  He  has 
given  us,  we  may  make  room  for  still  further  graces  in 
ourselves."  And  in  another  place  he  says,  *'  Speak  to 
God  in  thanksgiving,  and  you  will  get  graces  more  and 
more  abundantly."  So  St.  Lawrence  Justinian  says, 
"  Only  let  God  see  you  are  thankful  for  what  He  has 
given  you,  and  He  will  bestow  more  upon  you,  and 
better  gifts."  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi  also  re- 
ceived a  revelation,  in  which  she  was  told  that  thanks- 
giving prepared  the  soul  for  the  boundless  liberality  of 
the  Eternal  AVord. 

Now  stop,  dear  reader,  and  meditate  for  a  few  mi- 
nutes on  the  Eternal  Word ;  remember  which  of  the 
Three  Divine  Persons  He  is,  the  Second  Person,  the 
eternally  begotten  Word  of  the  Father,  the  splendour 
of  His  Majesty,  uncreated  Wisdom,  the  same  Person 
who  was  incarnate  and  crucified  for  us,  the  same  who 
sent  us  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  gave  us  Mary,  who  gives 
us  Himself  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  in  whose  mind 
revolve  at  this  moment  the  countless  lustres  of  all  pos- 
sible creations  ;  then  think  what  His  liberalities  must 
be — no  bound  or  measure  to  them.  We  cannot  count 
their  number,  nor  exhaust  their  freshness,  nor  under- 
stand their  excellence,  nor  hold  their  fulness,  nor  give 
intelligible  human  names  to  their  kinds,  inventions, 
varieties,  and  wonders.  Oh  that  we  had  more  especial 
devotion  to  the  Person  of  the  Eternal  Word,  that  we 
would  read  about  Him  the  wonders  the  Church  can  tell 
us,  and  then  meditate  and  make  acts  of  love  on  what 
we  read  !  This  is  the  true  way  to  increase  our  devo- 
tion to  His  most  dear  Humanitv,  and  to  learn  how  to 


THANKSGIVING.  1!45 


watch  at  His  crib,  to  weep  over  His  cross,  to  worship 
at  His  tabernacle,  and  to  nestle  in  Ilis  Sacred  Heart. 
Ask  St.  Michael,  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  and  St.  Atha- 
nasius,  to  get  you  this  devotion  ;  they  have  a  specialty 
for  it ;  and  see  how  you  will  run  the  way  of  God,  when 
its  heat  has  made  a  furnace  of  your  heart.  And  then 
remember  that  He  Himself  has  told  us,  through  this 
revelation  to  His  servant,  that  thanksgiving  prepares 
the  soul  for  His  amazing  liberalities.  You  see  you 
must  begin  this  day  and  hour  quite  a  new  and  more 
royal  sort  of  thanksgiving,  than  those  mere  infrequent, 
formal,  respectful  civilities,  by  which  you  have  hereto- 
fore been  content  to  acknowledge  your  accumulated 
obligations  to  our  dearest  Lord.  Now,  promise  Him 
this,  and  then  with  a  hotter  heart  read  on, 

St.  Bonaventure,  or  rather  the  author  of  the  medita- 
tions on  the  life  of  Christ,  tells  us  that  our  Blessed 
Lady  gave  thanks  to  God  without  intermission,  and  lest 
in  common  greetings  she  should  be  distracted  from  the 
praises  of  God,  she  used  to  reply,  when  any  one  saluted 
her,  "  Thanks  be  to  God  I"  and  from  her  example  seve- 
ral saints  have  adopted  the  same  practice.  Father 
Didacus  Martinez,  the  Jesuit,  who  was  called  the  apos- 
tle of  Peru,  because  of  his  zeal  for  souls,  and  his  inde- 
fatigable labours  in  that  province,  used  to  say  daily 
four  hundred  times,  and  often  six  hundred  times,  "  Deo 
gratiiis,"  and  he  had  some  beads  on  purpose  to  be  ac- 
curate. He  tried  to  induce  others  to  practise  the  same 
devotion,  and  he  declared  that  he  knew  there  was  no 
short  prayer  more  acceptable  to  God,  if  only  it  be 
uttered  with  a  devout  intention.  It  is  also  mentioned 
of  him,  in  the  summary  of  his  Process,  that  his  distinct 

21* 


246  THANKSGIVING. 


acts  of  divine  love  often  amounted  to  several  thousands 
in  the  day. 

There  was  a  beautiful  tradition  among  the  Jews  which 
Lancisius  quotes  from  Philo.  It  was  to  this  effect. 
When  God  had  created  the  world  He  asked  the  angela 
what  they  thought  of  this  work  of  His  hands.  One  of 
them  replied  that  it  was  so  vast  and  so  perfect,  that 
only  one  thing  was  wanting  to  it,  namely,  that  there 
should  be  created  a  clear,  mighty,  and  harmonious 
voice,  which  should  fill  all  the  quarters  of  the  world  in- 
cessantly with  its  sweet  sound,  thus  day  and  night  to 
offer  thanksgiving  to  its  Maker  for  His  incomparable 
blessings.  Ah  !  they  knew  not  how  much  more  than 
that  the  Blessed  Sacrament  was  one  day  to  be !  Thus 
our  thanksgiving  should  not  "be  an  exercise  of  devotion 
practised  now  and  then.  It  should  be  incessant,  the 
voice  of  a  love  which  is  ever  living  and  fresh  in  our 
hearts. 

In  several  of  the  texts  which  I  have  already  quoted, 
St.  Paul  speaks  of  prayer  with  thanksgiving ;  as  if 
there  was  to  be  no  prayer  of  which  thanksgiving  did 
not  form  a  part ;  and  this  also  would  illustrate  what  I 
said  of  the  spirit  of  the  Eucharist  being  found  in  every 
part  and  act  of  Catholic  devotion.  "  I  think,"  says  St. 
Gregory  Nyssen,  that  "  if  our  whole  life  long  we  con- 
versed with  God  without  distraction,  and  did  nothing 
but  give  thanks,  we  should  really  be  just  as  far  from 
adequately  thanking  our  heavenly  Benefactor,  as  if  we 
had  never  thought  of  thanking  Him  at  all.  For  time 
has  three  parts,  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future. 
If  you  look  at  the  present,  it  is  by  God  that  you  are  now 
living ;  if  the  future,  He  is  the  hope  of  every  thing  you 
expect;  if  the  past,  you  would  never  have  been  if  He 


THANKSaiVINO.  24' 


had  not  created  you.  That  you  were  born,  was  Ilis 
blessing.  And  after  you  were  born,  your  life  and  your 
death  were,  as  the  Apostle  says,  equally  His  blessing. 
Whatever  your  future  hopes  may  be,  they  hang  also 
upon  His  blessing.  You  are  only  master  of  the  pre- 
sent; and,  therefore,  if  you  never  once  intermitted 
thanksgiving  during  your  whole  life,  you  would  hardly 
do  enough  for  the  grace  that  is  always  present ;  and 
your  imagination  cannot  concieve  of  any  method  pos- 
sible by  which  you  could  do  any  thing  for  the  time 
past,  or  for  the  time  to  come." 

In  addition  to  these  authorities,  we  must  not  forget 
to  add  the  number  of  thanksgivings  which  have  been 
indulgenced  by  the  Church,  in  order  that  she  may  the 
more  effectually  lead  her  children  to  glorify  God  in  this 
way.  We  shall  have  occasion,  afterward,  to  revert  to 
the  fact  that  many  of  these  devotions  are  thanksgivings 
to  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  for  the  gifts  and  graces  be- 
stowed upon  our  Blessed  Lady. 

It  will  be  a  great  practical  help  to  us  in  thanksgiving 
to  classify  the  different  blessings  for  which  we  are  bound 
continually  to  thank  God;  and  I  propose  that  we  should 
in  this,  as  in  so  many  other  matters,  follow  the  order 
and  method  proposed  by  Father  Lancisius  : — 

1.  First  of  all,  we  should  thank  God  for  the  blessings 
which  are  common  to  the  whole  human  race.  St. 
Chrysostom  is  very  strong  upon  this  point ;  and  our 
Lord  called  the  practice  of  thanksgiving  for  these  bless- 
ings the  necklace  of  His  spouse  ;  for,  after  He  had  been 
pleased  to  espouse  St.  Bridget,  and  was  instructing  her 
hDW  she  should  spiritually  adorn  herself,  lie  said, 
"  The  Spouse  ought  to  have  the  signs  of  her  Bride- 
groom upon  her  breast ;  that  is,  the  memory  of  the  fa- 


248  THANKSGIVING. 


vours  I  have  shown  thee,  namely,  how  nobly  1  have 
created  thee,  giving  thee  both  a  body  and  a  soul,  how 
nobly  I  have  endowed  thee  with  health  and  temporal 
blessings,  how  sweetly  I  have  brought  thee  back  from 
thy  wanderings,  by  dying  for  thee,  and,  if  thou  wilt 
have  it,  restoring  to  thee  thinie  inheritance."  Orlan- 
dini  mentions  this  as  one  of  the  characteristics  of  Fa- 
ther Peter  Faber.  He  was  always  gratefully  mindful, 
not  only  of  God's  private  blessings,  but  of  those  com- 
mon to  all  mankind.  He  never  forgot  that  thanks  were 
due  to  the  divine  liberality,  not  less  for  these  common 
blessings,  than  for  special  ones  ;  and  it  was  a  source  of 
grief  to  him  that  men  generally  paid  no  attention  to 
them,  but  took  them  as  matters  of  course.  He  mourned 
because  men  rarely  blessed  that  sweet  will  and  bound- 
less charity  of  God,  by  which  He  had  first  created  the 
world,  and  then  redeemed  it,  and  after  that,  prepared 
for  us  eternal  glory,  and  that  in  all  this  He  had  vouch- 
safed to  think  specially  and  distinctly  of  each  one  of 
us.  Under  this  head  of  common  blessings  must  be 
reckoned  all  the  graces  of  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Je- 
sus, the  glorious  privileges  of  the  Mother  of  God,  and 
all  the  splendour  of  the  angels  and  the  saints.  Among 
other  promises  which  God  made  to  St.  Gertrude,  this 
was  one :  *'  Whenever  any  one  devoutly  praises  God, 
and  gives  Him  thanks  for  the  blessings  conferred  upon 
Gertrude,  the  Almighty  mercifully  wills  to  enrich  him 
with  as  many  spiritual  graces  as  he  offers  thanksgiv- 
ings, if  not  at  the  present  time,  at  least  on  some  fit- 
ting occasion."  And  thus  Orlandini  tells  us  that  Peter 
Faber  used  to  be  continually  congratulating  the  angels 
and  the  blessed  on  their  gifts,  assiduously  pondering 
the  particular  graces  God  had  given  them,  and  then 


THANKSGIVING.  .    249 


separately,  for  each  of  them,  naming  those  he  could, 
with  great  emotion  he  gave  God  thanks  for  them  on 
their  behalf.  He  reckoned  that  this  was  in  the  highest 
degree  delightful  to  those  inhabitants  of  heaven,  as  well 
as  immeasurably  profitable  to  ourselves,  as  in  heaven 
the  blessed  see  how  the  debt  of  gratitude  they  owe  to 
God  is  simply  oppressive,  and  never  can  be  paid.  He 
practised  this  devotion,  until  at  last  he  came  to  feel  as 
if  there  was  not  a  single  token  of  the  Divine  Goodness 
shown  to  any  one,  for  which  he  was  not  personally  a 
debtor.  He  made  himself  a  kind  of  vicar  for  every  one 
who  had  any  sort  of  happiness  or  success,  and  no 
sooner  did  he  perceive  it,  than  he  set  to  work  to  bless 
God,  and  to  give  thanks.  There  was  nothing  joyous, 
nothing  prosperous,  that  he  saw  or  heard  of,  but  he  at 
once  became  its  voice  of  praise  and  thanksgiving  to  the 
Lord.  Nay,  fair  cities,  fruitful  fields,  beautiful  olive- 
grounds,  delightful  vineyards, — he  looked  round  upon 
them  with  exulting  eye,  and  because  they  could  not 
speak  for  themselves,  he  spoke  for  them,  and  thanked 
the  Lord  of  all  for  their  beauty,  and  in  the  name  of 
their  owners  and  possessors,  for  the  dominion  which 
He  had  given  them  thereof.  How  wonderful  must  have 
been  the  interior  of  this  holy  father's  soul,  decked  with 
such  various  and  surpassing  gifts,  enriched  with  such 
very  peculiar,  and,  so  to  speak,  private  graces,  and, 
above  all,  with  a  dower  of  interior  dispositions,  which 
was  his  special  characteristic  treasure,  and  wherein 
hardly  any  canonized  saint  seems  to  surpass  him.  No 
wonder  St.  Francis  Xavier  added  him  to  the  litany  of 
the  saints,  or  that  St.  Francis  of  Sales  speaks  of  his 
joy  and  consolation  at  consecrating  an  altar  in  the  good 
father's  native  village  in  Savoy.     Yet,  like  Balthazar 


*250  THANKSGIVING. 


Alvarez,  -whom  St.  Theresa  saw  in  a  vision,  higher  in 
glory  than  all  his  contemporaries,  though  there  were 
many  canonized  among  them,  so  Peter  Faber  is  not 
raised  upon  the  altars  of  the  Church,  but  rests  in  God's 
bosom  as  one  of  His  hidden  saints.  Blessed  be  the  Most 
Holy  Trinity  for  every  gift  and  grace  that  ever  beauti- 
fied his  soul !  And  for  all  the  treasures  of  grace  which 
God  has  given  to  His  Saints,  and  now  keeps  hidden  in 
Himself,  so  that  we  cannot  glorify  Him  for  them ! 

2.  The  second  class  of  the  divine  mercies,  for  which 
we  are  bound  to  offer  continual  thanksgivings,  is  obvi- 
ously the  multitude  of  personal  blessings  which  we 
have  received  from  the  unmerited  goodness  of  God. 
How  beautifully  St.  Bernard  expresses  this  in  his  first 
sermon  on  the  Canticles.  -  In  the  wars  and  conflicts, 
says  he,  which  at  no  hour  are  wanting  to  those  who 
live  devoutly  in  Christ,  whether  from  the  flesh,  the 
world,  or  the  devil,  for  man's  life  is  a  warfare  on  the 
earth,  as  you  have  all  experienced  in  yourselves — in  all 
these  conflicts  we  must  daily  renew  our  songs  of  grati- 
tude for  the  victories  already  obtained.  As  often  as  a 
temptation  is  overcome,  or  a  vice  subdued,  or  an  immi- 
nent danger  avoided,  or  a  snare  of  the  evil  one  disco- 
vered in  time,  or  an  inveterate  passion  of  the  soul 
healed,  or  a  virtue  long  coveted  and  prayed  for,  at  length 
by  the  gift  of  God  granted  to  us,  what  must  we  do,  but, 
according  to  the  Prophet,  utter  the  voice  of  praise  and 
thanksgiving,  and  bless  God  at  each  single  blessing  for 
all  His  gifts  ?  Else,  when  the  last  day  comes,  he  will 
be  reckoned  among  the  ungrateful,  who  cannot  say, 
Thy  justifications  were  the  subject  of  my  song  in  the 
place  of  my  pilgrimage.'^    Nay,  at  every  advance  we 


*  Pb.  cxviU.  54. 


THANKSGIVING.  251 


make,  according  to  the  ascensions  which  each  has  dis- 
posed in  his  heart,  so  many  separate  songs  must  wo 
sing  to  the  praise  and  glory  of  Ilim  who  has  thus  pro- 
moted us.  Father  Lancisius*  says,  *'  I  would  urge  all 
who  serve  God  fervently  and  faithfully,  to  return  Him 
thanks  with  peculiar  affection  and  zealous  gratitude,  at 
least  four  times  in  the  day,  for  all  the  personal  bless- 
ings He  has  been  pleased  to  confer  upon  us ;  first,  in 
the  morning  at  meditation,  secondly,  in  the  middle  of 
the  day,  or  before  dinner,  thirdly,  in  the  examen  of 
conscience,  and  fourthly,  at  bed  time.  And  the  first 
rank  among  these  personal  blessings  should  be  held  by 
the  grace  which  has  called  us  either  from  heresy  to  the 
Catholic  faith,  or  from  neglecting  the  sacraments  to  a 
good  life,  or  from  relapses  into  sin  to  a  real  conversion. 
Our  Lord  said  once  to  St.  Bridget,  "  The  Bride  should 
be  ready,  with  fair  and  clean  adornments,  when  the 
Bridegroom  comes  to  the  nuptials,  and  then  are  your 
ornaments  clean  when  you  think  with  gratitude  about 
your  sins,  how  I  cleansed  you  in  baptism  from  the  sin 
of  Adam,  and  how,  when  you  fell,  I  have  so  often  borne 
with  you,  and  when  else  you  would  have  fallen,  have 
held  you  up." 

Among  our  personal  blessings  we  must  thank  God 
for  the  continuance  of  health  and  life,  whereby  we  can 
daily  amass  huge  treasures  of  merits,  and  glorify  the 
dear  majesty  of  God  by  numerous  acts  of  love.  We 
must  thank  Him  also  for  past  and  present  humiliations, 
for  calumnies,  unkind  interpretations  of  our  words, 
deeds,  omissions,  or  intentions,  the  detractions  we  have 
suffered  from,  and  every  thing  which  has  ever  happened 


=  u.  3ft. 


252  THANKSGIVING 


to  mortify  our  self-love.  For  if  we  consider  the  true 
interests  of  our  soul,  it  is  a  real  blessing  to  be  humbled 
and  kept  down,  not  only  because  it  helps  us  to  advance 
in  the  -way  of  perfection,  but  also  because  of  the  in- 
numerable opportunities  it  gives  us  of  glorifying  God 
and  acquiring  merit,  and  of  being  so  much  higher  in 
heaven.  Indeed,  there  is  hardly  any  thing  by  which  we 
can  glorify  God  more  effectually  than  by  the  exercise 
of  virtues  while  we  are  under  humiliations.  So,  if  wo 
are  in  a  condition  or  state  of  life  in  which  we  do  not 
attract  the  notice  or  the  praise  of  men,  we  ought  to 
thank  God  most  warmly  for  it,  considering  the  danger 
there  would  be  to  our  souls  in  a  more  elevated  and 
honourable  state.  The  patience  and  long-suffering  of 
God  should  be  another  subject  of  continual  thanks- 
giving. Is  it  not  wonderful  how  He  has  borne  with 
us,  and  wc  so  miserably  perverse  the  while?  How 
many  absolutions  have  we  not  had,  our  lost  merits 
restored  to  us,  fresh  graces  given  us  !  What  a  miracle 
of  patience  God  has  been !  Can  we  not  well  enter 
into  the  spirit  of  that  Spanish  lady  of  whom  Father 
Rho  speaks,  who  said,  "  That  if  she  had  to  build  a 
Church  in  honour  of  the  attributes  of  God,  she  would 
dedicate  it  to  the  Divine  I'atiencel'^  How  beautiful 
her  soul  must  have  been,  and  how  many  deep  and 
intimate  things  must  have  passed  between  her  and 
God! 

Again,  how  many  sins  have  we  been  in  the  way  of 
committing,  or  near  to  committing,  and  by  grace  have 
not  done  so  ?  And  how  many  temptations  have  proved 
•Gital  to  others,  which  never  so  much  as  came  in  our 
way  ?  Even  the  heathen  Emperor  Antoninus  thanked 
God  for  the  occasions  of  sin  to  which  he  had  never  been 


THANKSGIVING.  253 


exposed.  This  th3n  is  another  personal  blessing  for 
which  we  must  always  be  giving  thanks.  Again,  there 
are  three  blessings  which  a  Catholic  ought  to  remem- 
ber at  every  time ;  the  Divine  Election  which  made 
him  a  Catholic,  and  not  a  Jew,  Mohammedan,  or  heretic ; 
the  Divine  Providence  which  has  been  his  shield  and 
buckler  ever  since  he  was  born ;  and  the  Divine  Libe- 
rality which  has  loaded  him  with  such  a  profusion  of 
gifts  and  graces,  not  absolutely  necessary  for  his  sal- 
vation, but  either  to  adorn  his  soul,  or  to  increase  his 
joy  in  Christ. 

St.  Chrysostom,  also,  would  have  us  remember  with 
special  gratitude  the  hidden  and  unknown  blessings 
which  God  has  heaped  upon  us.  God,  he  says,  is  an 
overrunning  fountain  of  clemency,  flowing  upon  us, 
and  round  about  us,  even  when  we  know  it  not. 
Orlandini  tells  us  that  in  this  matter  also  Father  Peter 
Faber  was  remarkable.  He  used  to  say  there  were 
hardly  any  blessings  we  ought  more  scrupulously  to 
thank  God  for,  than  those  we  never  asked,  and  those 
which  come  lo  us  without  our  knowing  it.  It  is  not 
unlikely,  in  the  case  of  many  of  us,  that  these  hidden 
blessings  may  turn  out  at  the  last  day  to  have  been 
the  very  hinges  on  which  our  lives  turned,  and  that, 
through  them,  our  predestination  has  been  worked  out. 
and  our  eternal  rest  secured. 

3.  Neither  must  we  think  that  too  much  is  being 
asked  of  us,  when  spiritual  writers  tell  us  we  ought  to 
return  thanks  to  God  for  afflictions  and  tribulations, 
both  those  which  are  passed  and  those  which  we  may 
be  suffering  from  at  the  present  time.  This  is  of  course 
not  the  place  to  enter  into  the  uses  and  merciful  pur- 
Doses  of  affliction.     But  they  will  readily  suggest  them 


254  THANKSGIVING. 


selves  to  every  one.  John  of  Avila  used  to  say  that 
one  Deo  gratias  in  adversity  was  worth  six  thousand  in 
prosperity.  But  we  must  again  refer  to  Orlandini  in 
his  description  of  the  special  gift  of  thanksgiving  whicli 
Peter  Faber  possessed.  He  thought  it  was  not  enough 
that  men  should  humble  themselves  under  the  hand  of 
God  in  the  time  of  public  calamities,  but  that  they 
should  give  God  hearty  thanks  for  them,  for  famine 
and  scarcity,  for  wars,  floods,  pestilences,  and  all  the 
other  scourges  of  heaven ;  and  it  was  a  subject  of 
"vehement"  sorrow  to  him  that  men  did  not  openly 
acknowledge  God's  merciful  intentions  in  these  things. 
When  he  grieved  over  the  misfortunes  of  others,  what 
stirred  his  sorrow  most  was,  that  men  did  not  see  how 
much  of  gentleness  there  was  in  the  visitation  ;  for 
that  is  not  perfect  gratitude  which  is  fed  by  favours 
only.  "Nay,  we  cannot  tell,"  says  St.  Antiochus,  "who 
is  really  grateful,  till  we  see  whether  he  gives  God 
hearty  and  sincere  thanks  in  the  midst  of  calamities ;" 
and  St.  Chrysostom,  in  his  Homilies  on  the  epistle  to 
the  Ephesians,  says,  we  ought  to  thank  God  for  hell 
itself,  and  for  all  the  pains  and  punishments  that  are 
there,  because  they  are  such  an  effectual  bridle  to  our 
inordinate  passions. 

4.  It  is  also  a  very  important  devotion  to  thank  God 
for  what  we  call  trifling  blessings.  Not  of  course  that 
any  goodness  of  God  is  trifling  to  such  as  we  are ;  but 
mercies  may  be  little  by  comparison.  St.  Bernard 
applies  to  this  devotion  our  Lord's  injunction  to  His 
disciples  to  gather  up  the  fragments  that  nothing  bo 
lost.  In  the  Life  of  the  Blessed  Battista  Varani,  a 
Franciscaness,  we  read  that  our  dear  Lord  once  said 
to  her,  "If  you  were  never  to  sin  again,  and  if  you 


THANKSGIVING.  255 


alone  were  to  do  more  penances  than  all  the  Blessed  in 
heaven  have  ever  done,  and  if  you  vrere  to  shed  as 
many  tears  as  would  fill  all  the  seas,  and  suffer  as  many 
pains  as  you  are  capable  of  suffering, — all  that  would 
not  be  enough  to  thank  Me  for  the  very  least  blessing 
I  have  ever  bestowed  upon  you."  Another  time,  Bat- 
tista  said  God  had  given  her  to  understand  that  the 
glorious  Mother  of  God,  and  all  men  and  angels  with 
their  perfections,  could  not  adequately  thank  the  Divine 
Love  for  the  creation  of  one  the  least  field-flower  on  the 
earth,  which  lie  has  made  for  our  use,  in  respect  of 
the  infinite  gulf  there  is  between  His  excellence  and 
our  vileness.  Orlandini  tells  us  that  Peter  Faber  ex- 
celled in  this  devotion  also ;  and  that  he  used  to  say, 
that  in  every  gift  of  God,  no  matter  how  trifling,  three 
things  were  to  be  considered,  the  giver,  the  gift,  and 
the  affection  with  which  it  was  given ;  and  that  if  we 
pondered  these  three  points,  we  should  see  that  there 
could  be  no  such  things  as  little  mercies.  And  doubt- 
less this  was  the  reason,  says  the  biographer,  why  that 
blessed  mind  was  always  overflowing  with  the  abun- 
dance of  divine  gifts.  For,  as  God  is  an  inexhaustible 
ocean  of  goodness,  the  fountain  of  His  liberality  cannot 
be  dried  up  where  He  meets  with  a  considerate  and 
thankful  mind  into  which  He  can  pour  Himself.  So 
Thomas  h,  Kempis  observes,  that  if  we  look  at  the 
dignity  of  the  Giver,  no  gift  is  small  which  comes 
from  God.  Our  Lord  taught  St.  Gertrude  even  to  give 
thanks  for  future  blessings  not  yet  received.  So  ac- 
ceptable is  thanksgiving  before  God  ! 

5.  St.  Ignatius  used  to  say  that  there  were  very  few, 
perhaps  not  one  person  in  the  world,  who  thoroughly 
understood  what  an  impediment  we  are  to  God  wishing 


256  THANKSGIVING. 


to  work  great  things  in  our  souls ;  for  it  is  hardly 
credible  what  God  would  do,  if  we  would  only  let  Him. 
Hence  holy  people  have  made  a  special  devotion  of 
thanking  the  Divine  Majesty  for  all  the  blessings  He 
would  in  His  munificence  have  conferred  upon  them,  if 
thoy  themselves  had  not  hindered  Him.  Others,  again, 
have  been  touched  with  sensible  gratitude  for  blessings 
for  which  they  were  not  thankful  at  the  time  they  re- ' 
ceived  them.  Peter  Faber  used  to  say  masses,  or  get 
them  said,  in  expiation  of  his  own  and  others'  ungrate- 
ful inconsiderateness  when  receiving  blessings  from 
God  ;  and  whenever  he  saw  a  rich  or  fortunate  man, 
he  used  to  make  acts  of  reparation  for  his  possible  for- 
getfulness  of  his  Divine  Benefactor.  Others  have  felt 
strongly  about  blessings,  for  which  they  thanked  God 
at  the  time,  but  it  now  seems  to  them,  not  so  much  as 
they  might  have  done,  nor  so  affectionately.  St,  Law- 
rence Justinian  tells  us  that  this  feeling  enters  into 
the  thanksgivings  of  the  Blessed  in  heaven.  Then 
there  are  blessings  which  we  have  abused  or  made  light 
of;  and  St.  Bernard  tells  us  these  should  certainly  bo 
made  the  subject  of  special  thanksgiving.  Others, 
again,  have  exercised  devotion  in  thanking  God  for 
blessings  which  others  were  preparing  for  them,  or 
which  were  growing,  or  which  happened  while  they 
themselves  were  asleep.  This  at  least  shows  the  in- 
genious love  of  grateful  hearts.  But  there  is  another 
practice  recorded  by  Orlandini  of  Peter  Faber,  which 
must  by  no  means  be  omitted.  It  is  well  worthy  the 
imitation  of  all  of  us.  It  is  to  give  God  special  thanks 
for  preventing  innumerable  of  our  words  and  deeds 
from   giving  scandal,  when   in   themselves  they  are 


THANKSGIVING.  257 


calculated  to  do  so.    What  can  be  a  sweeter  mercy 
than  thi8  ? 

6.  Another  practice  of  holy  men  has  been  to  thank 
Ood  in  behalf  of  the  irrational  creatures,  a  devotion 
most  acceptable  to  Him  as  the  wise  Creator  of  the 
world ;  and  it  has  also  the  further  advantage  of  being 
a  most  excellent  practice  of  the  Presence  of  God,  en- 
abling us  everywhere,  and  at  all  times,  to  rise  to  Ilim 
by  means  of  His  creatures.  But  we  must  not  in  this 
think  so  much  of  the  dominion  or  use  which  God  has 
given  us  out  of  His  bounty  over  these  creatures,  as  of 
the  love  which  He  had  toward  us  in  creating  them,  as 
He  Himself  said  to  St.  Catherine  of  Siena :  "  The  soul 
which  has  arrived  at  the  state  of  perfect  love,  when  it 
receives  gifts  and  graces  from  Me,  does  not  look  so 
much  at  My  gift,  as  at  the  affection  of  charity  which 
moved  Me  to  confer  the  gift  upon  it." 

7.  We  shall  also  glorify  God  by  thanking  Him  for 
all  the  blessings  conferred  upon  our  enemies.  This 
devotion  will  be  the  more  acceptable  to  Him  because 
it  is  a  great  exercise  of  brotherly  love  ;  for  it  is  impos- 
sible to  practise  it  long  without  all  coldness  and 
uncomfortable  feeling  giving  way  to  gentleness  and 
tenderness,  even  toward  those  who  have  wronged  us 
most,  or  who  show  the  greatest  dislike  of  us.  But,  as 
my  chief  aim  in  this  treatise  is  nothing  but  to  accumu- 
late an  abundance  of  affectionate  contrivances  to  get  our 
dearest  Lord  a  little  more  glory,  as  it  is  the  wrongs 
of  God,  the  injured  interests  of  Jesus,  in  behalf  of 
which  I  want  to  move  my  readers,  there  are  some  other 
methods  of  thanksgiving  which  are  very  much  to  my 
purpose.  Look  at  the  lost  souls !  There  is  not  one 
whom  God  has  not  loaded  with  blessings,  and  pursued 

U  22* 


258  THANKSGIVING. 


with  tenderest  graces,  and  striven  to  win  with  the 
divine  caresses  of  His  IIolv  Spirit.  And  there  are  no 
thanks  there.  Justice  has  its  harvest  there,  but  not 
love.  Hence  it  is  that  De  Ponte,  in  the  Preface  to  his 
Meditations,  recommends  to  us  the  practice  of  thank- 
ing God  for  all  the  blessings  of  nature  and  grace  which 
have  been  bestowed  on  those  who  have  lost  themselves 
by  their  own  wilfulness.  Nay,  there  have  been  somo  < 
so  jealous  of  God's  glory,  so  afraid  that  some  nook  of 
His  creation  would  not  thank  Ilim  for  His  goodness, 
that  they  have  loved  to  praise  Him  because  even  the 
lost  are  for  His  love's  sake  punished  citra  condignmn, 
less  than  they  deserved.  How  prodigal  has  God  been 
of  His  goodness !  Could  figures  tell  the  number  of 
His  gifts  to  the  multitude  of  the  reprobate  ?  Then  add 
the  Jews,  infidels,  and  heretics  now  on  earth,  who  leave 
Him  without  thanksgiving !  and  bad  Catholics  living 
in  mortal  sin  and  trampling  the  sacraments  beneath 
their  feet,  crucifying  our  dearest  Lord  afresh,  and 
putting  Him  to  an  open  shame !  Blessed  be  God  for 
every  one  of  the  gifts  of  every  one  of  these  !  May  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  praise  Him  this  hour  for  them  all 
m  every  tabernacle  throughout  the  world ;  for  sweeter, 
>h  a  thousand  times !  is  the  cry  of  that  Mystical  Life 
♦f  Jesus  than  could  have  been  the  strong,  clear,  ubi- 
quitous and  musical  voice  which  the  Jewish  tradition 
breamed  angelic  love  had  craved. 

If  you  ask  for  a  practice  for  this,  take  the  scheme  of 
the  French  Apostolate  of  Prayer.  The  prayer  will  bo 
none  the  less  prayer  because  you  turn  it  into  thanks- 
giving. Nay,  it  will  be  all  the  more  availing.  On 
•Sunday,  invoking  the  Most  Holy  Trinity,  return 
thanks  for  the  Church,  the  Pope,  the  priesthood,  and 


THANKSGIVING.  259 


all  her  members  in  a  state  of  grace.  On  Blonday,  in 
union  with  all  the  saints,  thank  God  for  all  He  has 
(lone,  is  doing,  and  graciously  purposes  to  do  for  the 
needs  of  catholicity  in  Europe.  On  Tuesday,  call  on 
t]ie  Holy  Angels  to  join  you  in  thanking  the  Divine 
Majesty  for  all  His  mercies  to  the  thirty-six  milliona 
of  savages  and  negroes.  On  Wednesday,  invoke  St. 
Joseph,  and  with  him  thank  God  for  all  the  love  He 
has  lavished  on  the  three  hundred  and  forty-five  millions 
of  unbelievers  in  Eastern  Asia.  On  Thursday,  unite 
yourself  with  Jesus  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament  to  supply 
for  the  ingratitude  of  the  two  hundred  and  twenty  mil- 
lions of  infidels  in  Western  Asia.  On  Friday,  shelter 
yourself  in  the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  and  spurred  by 
the  memory  of  His  dear  Passion,  supply  for  the  ingrati* 
tude  of  the  hundred  and  twenty  millions  of  heretics 
and  schismatics.  On  Saturday,  offer  to  God  the  Im- 
maculate Heart  of  our  sweet  Mother  for  all  the  sinners 
of  the  world,  in  return  for  the  numberless  benefits  He 
has  bestowed  upon  them.  Oh  that  God  might  have  a 
little  more  glory,  were  it  ever  so  little !  Oh  that  the 
number  of  hearts  might  daily  increase  which  should 
love  Jesus  more,  and  should  mourn  that  He  is  loved  so 
little !  What  is  life,  what  is  death,  if  God  only  be 
loved,  and  be  loved  more,  and  more,  and  more  ?  Sweet 
Jesus !  when  shall  we  burn  ?  When  shall  we  burn  ? 
Where  is  the  fire  Thou  earnest  on  earth  to  kindle? 
Why  is  it  not  kindled  in  our  hearts  ?  Dearest  Lord  ! 
if  we  love  Thee  so  little,  we  can  at  least  hate  ourselves 
that  we  do  not  love  Thee  more ! 

8.  Another  practice  of  thanksgiving,  and  one  which 
leads  us  to  the  confines  of  the  next  chapter,  on  Praise 
and  Desire,  is  to  thank  our  Blessed  Lord,  with  the 


260  THANKSGIVING. 


Utmost  fervour  and  simplicity  of  joy,  for  the  immense 
multitude  of  angels  and  saints  who  fill  the  choirs  of 
heaven,  adoring  Ilim  as  their  Head,  and  thanking  Him 
as  the  author  of  all  grace  and  the  giver  of  all  gifts. 
For,  if  wo  sincerely  love  Him,  it  is  our  chief  sorrovr 
that  we  cannot  love  Him  worthily,  and,  therefore,  it 
is  really  a  blessing  bestowed  upon  ourselves  that  He 
should  have  been  pleased  to  create  creatures  who  can 
love  Him  so  much  more,  so  unspeakably  more,  than  we 
do.  To  this  some  have  added  thanksgivings  for  all  the 
worship  and  adoration  He  is  receiving  at  this  moment 
throughout  the  earth,  and  in  purgatory,  all  the  sacri- 
fices that  are  being  ofiered,  all  the  prayers  that  are 
being  made  in  churches,  the  vows  by  which  fervent 
men  are  binding  themselves,  and  all  the  increases  of 
Divine  Love  which  are  going  on  in  the  hearts  of  those 
who  are  in  a  state  of  grace.  Others  again  have  been 
drawn  to  continual  thanksgiving  to  Jesus  for  the  glori- 
ous mysteries  of  His  life,  as  contrasted  with  the  joyful 
and  the  sorrowful,  thanking  Him  for  them  daily,  for 
the  glory  He  Himself  had  in  them,  and  for  the  glory 
they  gave  His  Father,  as  well  as  the  benefits  which  we 
derive  from  them.  Thus  those  who  have  had  a  special 
devotion  to  our  Lord's  Resurrection  have  almost 
always  coupled  it  with  an  equally  special  attraction 
to  thanksgiving. 

9.  Others  have  been  distinguished  by  a  deep  and 
life-long  feeling  of  gratitude  for  the  gift  of  faith,  and 
for  all  the  supernatural  wonders  of  our  holy  religion. 
These  form  two  very  distinct  sources  of  devotion.  By 
the  latter,  to  speak  of  that  first,  men  are  led  to  rejoice 
in  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  God  and  the  unlimited 
supremacy  of  His  most  dear  Majesty,  and  in  their  own 


THANKSGIVING.  261 


vileness  and  nothingness.  They  are  drawn,  like  Petei 
Consolini,  to  the  views  of  grace  which  make  least  of 
man's  freedom  and  most  of  God's  election.  They  think 
they  can  never  thank  God  sufficiently  that  they  are  so 
completely  and  helplessly  in  His  hands.  They  would 
not  for  the  world  have  it  otherwise.  They  can  hardly 
imderstand  those  who  do  not  feel  as  they  do.  They 
bless  God  for  His  promises,  but  their  habit  of  mind  is 
to  trust  rather  to  His  love.  They  do  not  care  about 
merit.  What  they  care  about  is  His  glory.  "I  cannot 
bear  this  talking  about  merit,"  said  St.  Francis  of 
Sales :  though  it  does  not  follow  that  everybody  else 
has  a  right  to  say  what  he  said.  In  low-spirits  it  is 
the  thought  of  God's  sovereignty,  rather  than  of  His 
faithfulness,  which  is  the  bed  of  their  repose.  These 
are  the  persons  who  are  always  so  happy  in  religion, 
except  when  God  withdraws  for  awhile  this  blessed 
confidence,  for  their  greater  sanctification  ;  and  even 
then,  their  language  is  that  of  Job,  "  Though  He  slay 
me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  Him." 

Men  with  this  attraction  seem  to  have  a  special  gift 
of  unselfishness  and  unworldliness.  They  delight  in 
the  spiritual  plans  and  successes  of  other  men,  or  of 
religious  orders  which  are  rivals  to  their  own.  It  is  a 
joy  to  them  that  all  the  arrangements  about  merit, 
satisfaction,  remission,  infused  habits,  and  indulgences, 
are  so  thoroughly  supernatural.  They  have  a  profound 
reverence  for  all  the  benedictions  of  the  Church,  for 
her  sacramentals,  forms,  and  manipulations,  and  foi 
the  rubrics  of  her  ceremonies,  which  seem  to  be  rathei 
gleams  of  heaven  than  the  marshalling  of  earthly 
pomps.  They  glory  in  the  principles  of  the  Gospel 
and  the  vitality  of  tl>e  Church  being  opposed  to  all 


262  THANKSGIVING. 


the  calculations  and  principles  of  the  world.  They 
revel  in  the  strength  of  weakness,  in  the  exaltation  of 
holy  poverty,  in  the  splendour  of  abasement,  in  the 
almightiness  of  suffering,  in  the  victory  of  defeat.  These 
things  are  to  them  like  the  odours  of  the  spice  islands 
wafted  out  to  the  weary  navigator.  They  are  fragrant 
of  heaven  and  of  God.  It  is  a  peculiar  delight  to 
them  that  men  are  converted  by  unaccountable  grace 
rather  than  by  controversy,  and  that  God  so  often 
seems  to  take  matters  into  His  own  hands,  and  to  work 
of  Himself,  without  making  use  of  us.  They  have  no 
heartaching  difiSculties  about  God  and  nature,  because 
they  do  not  look  upon  men,  as  Bridgewater  treatises 
and  such  like  things  teach,  as  the  centre  of  the  system, 
or  the  reason  of  creation,  or  the  mark  God  worked  to. 
They  think  this  would  narrow  their  spiritual  views  as 
much  as  believing  the  earth  to  be  the  centre  of  the 
solar  system,  or  the  solar  system  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  would  narrow  a  man's  views  of  nature.  They 
look  on  Jesus  as  the  centre  of  all  things,  as  the  reason 
of  creation,  as  the  mark  God  worked  to,  as  He  vouch- 
safes to  speak  of  Himself  as  working,  who  is  self-suffi- 
cient bliss  and  rest.  The  predestination  of  Jesus,  in 
their  view,  explains  every  thing,  harmonizes  every 
thing,  controls  every  thing,  is  the  fountain  of  every 
thing  which  lies  outside  the  Unity  of  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity;  and  Mary's  predestination  is  part  of  His. 
They  are  only  here  in  His  train,  and  they  have  no  con- 
sequence or  importance  except  the  one  dear  dignity  of 
being  loved  by  Him.  As  the  little  stars  go  out  when 
the  great  sun  shines,  so  faith's  hard  facts,  the  permis- 
aioa  of  evil,  and  the  eternity  of  punishment,  these 


THANKSGIVING.  263 


men  cannot  see  because  of  the  blessed  and  exhilarating 
dazzle  of  the  Predestination  of  Jesus. 

The  practice  of  thanksgiving  for  the  gift  of  faith  is 
one  which  cannot  be  too  strongly  recommended  in  our 
own  time  and  country.  It  was  the  devotion  of  that 
most  beautiful  soul,  St.  Jane  Frances  de  Chantal ;  and 
I  quote  from  her  life  at  length  with  the  less  scruple, 
because  of  all  the  varieties  of  the  spiritual  life,  of  all 
the  manifestations  of  the  Spirit  of  holiness,  none  seem 
so  fitted  to  ourselves  as  the  sweet  and  gentle  spirit  of 
the  Visitation.  It  is,  perhaps,  natural  I  should  say 
this,  because  of  its  connection  with  the  Oratory.  When 
St.  Francis  of  Sales  was  in  Rome  as  a  young  man,  he 
was  much  at  the  Oratory,  and  he  called  its  rule  "  a 
wonderful  mode  of  life."  One  of  his  bosom  friends 
was  our  Venerable  Juvenal  Ancina,  in  the  process  of 
whose  canonization  St.  Francis  was  a  witness.  When 
he  wished  to  consolidate  his  work  of  conversion  in  the 
Chablais,  he  established  an  Oratory  of  St.  Philip  at 
Thonon,  with  seven  Fathers,  and  was  himself  the  Fa- 
ther Superior.  Hence  the  Holy  See  has  alloAved  some 
of  our  Congregations  to  keep  his  feast,  as  a  saint  of 
the  Order.  The  Rule  of  the  Visitation  has  several 
striking  points  of  resemblance  to  St.  Philip's  Rule. 
The  title-page  of  the  Venetian  edition  of  his  works 
runs,  "  The  Spiritual  Works  of  St.  Francis  of  Sales, 
Father  Superior  of  the  Oratory  of  Thonon,  and  Found- 
er of  the  Visitation  of  St.  Mary ;"  and  the  transla- 
tion of  Charles  Augustus  de  Sales'  Life  of  the  Vene- 
rable M.  Blonay,  published  at  Naples  in  1694,  professes 
on  the  title-page  to  be  '*  By  one  covetous  of  the  spirit 
of  SS.  Francis  of  Sales  and  Philip  Neri."  But  to  re- 
turn io  St.  Jane  Frances. 


264  THANKSGIVING. 


We  read  of  her  as  follows  ;*  "  When,  after  her  mar- 
riage she  went  to  reside  in  the  countr^'^,  and  on  becom- 
ing a  widow,  she  ordered  those  of  her  servants  who  had 
the  best  voices,  to  learn  the  chant  of  the  Credo,  to  assist 
in  singing  it  more  solemnly  at  the  parochial  mass,  in 
which  she  took  very  great  pleasure;  and  afterward, 
when  a  religious,  she  occasionally  sang  it  at  recreation. 
She  paid  a  special  devotion  to  the  holy  martyrs,  be-? 
cause  they  had  shed  their  blood  for  the  faith,  and  to 
the  saints  of  the  first  ages,  because  they  had  defended 
that  holy  faith  by  their  writings  and  their  labours,  so 
that  it  became  quite  a  proverb  among  her  nuns  on  the 
festivals  of  these  great  saints  of  the  first  centuries,  to 
say,  '  It  is  one  of  our  mother's  saints !'  She  was  not 
satisfied  with  hearing  these  lives  read  in  the  refectory, 
and  speaking  of  them  at  recreation ;  but  she  had  the 
book  occasionally  taken  to  her  room,  to  read  it  again 
in  private,  and  in  the  latter  years  of  her  life  she  pur- 
chased the  Lives  of  the  Saints  in  two  volumes,  and 
marked  the  lives  of  those  great  saints  and  first  follow- 
ers of  the  Church,  which  she  read  with  great  devotion. 
She  had  an  especial  devotion  to  St.  Spiridion,  who  had 
'  captivated  the  reason  of  a  subtle  philosopher  m  ith  the 
creed.  She  knew  the  hymn  of  St.  Thomas  by  heart, 
*  Adoro  Te  devote,'  and  often  recited  it.  She  taught  it 
to  some  of  the  sisters,  and  told  them  that  she  always 
repeated  the  following  verse  two  or  three  times  : 

'  Credo  quidquid  dixit  Dei  Filius.' 
I  believe  all  the  Son  of  God  has  spoken. 

At  the  commencement  of  her  widowhood,  so  thoroughly 
did  she  abandon  herself  to  her  devotion,  that  she  had 

*  Life,  vol.  u.  p.  6,  Orat.  Edit 


THANKSGIVING.  265 


no  greater  pleasure  than  in  convincing  her  understand- 
ing with  the  following  words:  'I  see  the  juice  of  the 
grape,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb  of 
God.  I  taste  bread  and  believe  it  to  be  the  true 
Flesh  of  my  Saviour.'  But  when  she  placed  herself 
under  the  guidance  of  St.  Francis,  he  taught  her 
to  simplify  her  belief,  and  to  recite  fervent  and  short 
acts  of  faith,  thus  showing  her  that  the  most  simple 
and  the  most  humble  faith  is  also  the  most  loving 
and  most  solid.  She  daily  repeated  at  the  end  of  the 
Gospel  of  the  Mass,  the  Credo  and  the  Confiteor ;  and 
one  day,  while  exhorting  her  nuns  to  do  likewise,  she 
exclaimed,  *0  God!  what  need  have  we  to  humble 
ourselves,  inasmuch  as  we  are  not  deemed  worthy  to 
confess  our  creed  before  all  the  tyrants  of  the  earth !'  " 
Just  as  St.  Philip  rose  up  in  agitation  one  night  in  the 
Oratory,  fearing  lest  what  the  preacher  of  the  evening 
had  said  should  give  his  hearers  a  favourable  idea  of 
the  Institute,  and  cried  out,  "  There  is  no  need  to 
boast :  we  are  nothing ;  no  one  of  the  Congregation  has 
shed  his  blood  for  the  faith  yet."  St.  Jane  Frances 
had  also  certain  sentences  written  on  the  walls  of  the 
cell,  which  was  afterward  made  the  novitiate ;  and 
she  wrote  on  the  wall  beneath  the  crucifix  the  follow- 
ing verse  from  the  Canticles,  "  I  sat  down  under  the 
shadow  of  my  Well-Beloved,  and  His  fruit  was  sweet 
to  my  palate."  A  sister  begged  her  to  say  why  she 
put  the  sentence  in  that  place :  "  In  order,"  she  re- 
plied, **  to  be  often  making  naked  and  simple  acts  of 
'aith  ;  for  the  faith,  though  a  light  in  itself,  is  a  shadow 
to  the  human  reason ;  and  I  wish  my  reason  to  sit 
down  in  repose  under  the  shadow  of  the  faith  which 
makes  one  believe  that  He  who  was  placed  on  that 

23 


266  THANKSGIVING. 


cross  with  so  much  contempt,  is  the  true  Son  of  God." 
Another  time  she  said  that  she  had  always  the  inten- 
tion, when  looking  at  the  crucifix,  that  her  mere  look 
should  be  an  act  of  faith  similar  to  that  of  the  cen- 
turion, who,  striking  his  breast,  said,  "  Truly  this  man 
was  the  Son  of  God." 

She  told  a  person  in  confidence,  that  while  she  was 
yet  in  the  world,  God  had  given  her  great  light  on  the 
purity  of  faith,  and  showed  her  that  the  perfection  of 
our  understanding  in  this  life,  is  its  captivity  and  sub- 
jection to  obscure  matters  of  faith,  and  that  the  under 
standing  would  be  enlightened  in  proportion  as  it 
should  be  humbly  submissive  to  these  obscurities,  and 
that  she  always  hated  tliose  sermons  which  attempted 
to  prove  by  natural  reason  the  mystery  of  the  holy  and 
adorable  Trinity,  and  other  articles  of  our  faith ;  and 
that  the  faithful  soul  must  seek  no  other  reason  than 
that  sole  sovereign  universal  reason,  namely,  that  God 
has  revealed  these  things,  as  far  as  was  needful,  to  His 
Church.  She  never  cared  to  hear  of  miracles  in  con- 
firmation of  the  faith,  nor  revelations,  and  occasionally 
she  made  them  pass  them  over  while  they  were  read 
ing  in  the  refectory  the  Lives  of  the  Saints,  or  sermons 
on  the  festivals  and  mysteries  of  our  Lord  and  our 
Lady.  She  resembled  in  this  the  great  St.  Louis  of 
Franco,  who,  once  when  he  was  called  into  his  private 
chapel  to  see  some  miraculous  appearance  which  had 
taken  place  at  Mass,  refused  to  go,  saying,  that  he 
thanked  God  he  believed  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament, 
and  should  not  believe  it  more  firmly  for  all  the  mira- 
cles in  the  world,  neither  did  he  wish  to  see  one,  lest 
he  should  thereby  forfeit  our  Lord's  special  blessing  on 
those  who  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  believed.     She 


THANKSGIVING.  1^67 


occasionally  said  to  her  nuns,  *'  What  have  "we  to  do 
with  proofs,  miracles,  and  revelations,  unless  it  be  to 
bless  God  who  has  provided  them  for  some  who  have 
need  thereof?  God  has  revealed  to  us  all  that  is  ne- 
cessary through  His  Church." 

When  she  composed  the  meditations  for  the  retreats, 
extracted  from  the  writings  of  St.  Francis,  she  wished 
to  have  one  on  the  incomparable  grace  we  have  of 
being  children  of  holy  Church.  She  had  it  written  on 
a  separate  sheet  of  paper,  and  told  her  nuns  that  she 
had  not  got  beyond  this  meditation  during  the  whole 
of  the  two  first  days  of  her  retreat.  She  read  Holy 
Scripture  by  the  order  of  her  superiors  ;  but  among  all 
the  books  of  this  sacred  volume,  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles  was  her  favourite  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  say 
how  often  she  read  and  re-read  it.  She  related  to  her 
community  its  contents  with  fresh  fervour;  and  it 
seemed  that  each  time  she  spoke  of  this  primitive 
Church,  she  told  them  something  which  they  had  never 
heard  before.  When  she  heard  that  her  son  had  been 
killed  in  fighting  against  the  English  in  the  Isle  of 
Rhe,  she  knelt  down  with  clasped  hands,  and  her  eyes 
lifted  up  to  heaven,  and  said,  "Allow  me,  my  Lord  and 
my  God !  allow  me  to  speak,  to  give  vent  to  my  grief; 
and  what  shall  I  say,  0  my  God,  unless  it  be  to  thank 
Thee  for  the  honour  thou  has  done  me  in  taking  my 
only  son  while  he  was  fighting  for  the  Church  of 
Rome.''  She  then  took  up  a  crucifix  which  she  kissed, 
and  said,  "I  receive  this  blow,  my  Redeemer!  with 
all  submission,  and  beseech  Thee  to  receive  this  child 
into  the  arms  of  Thy  Divine  Mercy."  After  this  she 
thus  addressed  the  deceased :  "  0  my  dear  son  !  how 
happy  art  thou  in  having  sealed  with  thy  blood  tho 


2G8  TIIANKSGIVINQ. 


fidelity  -which  thy  ancestors  had  ever  had  for  the 
Church  of  Rome ;  in  this  I  esteem  myself  happy,  and 
return  thanks  to  God  for  having  been  thy  mother." 

10.  But  there  is  one  practice  of  thanksgiving  which 
must  enter  into  all  others  and  be  joined  to  them, 
thanksgiving,  if  it  might  be  so,  of  tears  rather  than  of 
words  ;  gratitude  for  the  Adorable  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass, 
and  the  Personal  Presence  of  Jesus  with  His  Church. 
It  is  not  only  the  inestimable  blessings  of  the  Sacrifice 
which  must  call  out  these  incessant  thanksgivings, 
neither  is  it  the  unspeakable  love  and  condescension 
involved  in  it.  But  it  is  the  joy  that  now  at  least 
thanks  are  offered  to  God  which  are  equal  to  Himself. 
We  need  no  longer  sit  by  the  waysides  of  the  world, 
downcast  and  weeping,  because  His  Blessed  Majesty 
is  not  worshipped  and  praised  and  thanked,  as  it  ought 
to  be.  One  mass  is  infinite  praise,  and  there  are 
masses  nearly  every  moment  of  day  and  night  on  this 
side  the  world  and  at  our  antipodes.  There  is  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  in  crowded  or  neglected  churches 
all  the  earth  over;  and  wheresoever  He  is,  there  is 
infinite  praise,  unspeakable  worship,  unfathomable 
thanksgiving !  And  the  especial  function  of  the  Holy 
Mass  is  Eucharist,  the  worship  of  thanksgiving !  Nay, 
even  the  mere  creature  by  means  of  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment can  attain  himself  to  a  higher  act  of  worship  than 
he  could  ever  else  have  dreamed  of ;  for  the  creature 
can  pay  no  higher  homage  to  his  Creator  than  by  re- 
ceiving Him  in  the  overwhelming  reality  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament.  What  repose  there  is  in  the  thought  of 
all  this  !  How  many  inward  complainings  can  we  hush 
by  it!  How  much  unhumble  disquietude  with  our 
own  littleness,  our  own   vile  attainments,   our  own 


THANKSGIVING.  269 


impossibilities  of  loving  God  as  we  feel  we  ought  to 
love  Ilim  J  Ah  blessed  Jesus  !  He  is  all  things  to  us. 
Whatever  we  want,  it  comes  to  us  in  the  shape  of  Him, 
in  the  strangest  of  places,  and  the  most  unaccountable 
of  ways !  Shall  we  not  say  then  that  we  love  God 
worthily  and  worship  Him  abundantly,  for  Jesus  is 
our  love  and  our  worship  too  ?  How  happy  with  an 
abounding,  inexhaustible  happiness,  this  makes  us  I 
And  it  is  so  much  sweeter  to  owe  every  thing  to  Jesus, 
than  to  have  it  of  ourselves,  even  if  that  were  possible  ! 
There  is  no  pleasure  on  this  side  the  grave  equal  to  the 
feeling  of  the  multiplication  and  reduplication  of  our 
obligations  to  our  dear  Lord.  The  more  we  run  into 
His  debt,  the  more  joy  it  is ;  the  more  inextricable  our 
obligations,  the  more  light-hearted  is  our  liberty  ;  the 
knowledge  that  to  all  eternity  we  shall  be  just  as  far 
off  from  satisfying  His  love,  just  in  the  same  impossi- 
bility of  paying  what  we  owe,  is  itself  the  joy  of  joj^s. 
And  meanwhile,  thanks,  a  thousand  times  thanks,  to 
Jesus !  God  gets  His  praise.  His  worship,  and  His 
thanks,  deep,  beautiful,  infinite  as  Himself. 

Now  this  perhaps  will  enable  us  to  judge  how  far  we 
are  truly  grateful  to  our  Blessed  Lord,  and  how  far  we 
have  really  discharged  the  duty  of  thanksgiving. 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  particular  methods  of 
this  devotion,  practised  by  the  saints  or  suggested  by 
spiritual  writers,  the  whole  Church  is  agreed  on  the 
duty  and  fitness  of  a  special  thanksgiving  after  Holy 
Communion.  If  ever  there  is  a  time  for  thanks  too 
deep  for  words,  it  is  when  the  Creator  has  been  pleased 
to  overwhelm  His  creature  with  this  stupendous  gift  of 
Himself,  and  when  He  is  actually  within  us.  Henco 
it  is  that  spiritual  writers  tell  us,  for  a  while  at  least, 

23* 


270  TnANKSGIVING. 


not  to  open  a  book,  but  to  commune  with  Jesus  in  our 
own  hearts.  "We  must  surely  have  something  to  say 
to  Him  then,  or  at  least  He  will  say  something  to  us 
in  the  deep  silence  of  our  hearts,  if  only  we  will  listen. 
Yet  how  stands  the  case  in  reality  ?  Why,  if  we  may 
take  the  fervour  and  regularity  with  which  we  make 
our  thanksgiving  after  communion,  as  an  index  of  our 
love  of  Jesus,  nothing  can  well  be  more  disheartening. 
To  must  of  us  there  is  hardly  a  quarter  of  an  hour  in 
our  lives,  more  tedious,  idle,  aimless,  unsatisfactory, 
than  what  we  call  our  thanksgiving.  We  have  nothing 
to  say.  Our  hearts  do  not  run  over.  We  never  can  re- 
ceive a  greater  gift  in  this  world.  Each  communion, 
it  grows  more  wonderful ;  so  much  does  our  lukewarm- 
ness  and  ingratitude  make  the  continuance  of  His  love 
a  stranger  marvel.  He  has  come  who  is  to  be  our  joy 
for  all  eternity ;  and  we  have  nothing  to  say  to  Him. 
We  tire  of  His  company.  It  is  a  relief  to  us  when  we 
may  believe  that  He  has  gone.  We  have  been  civil  to 
Him.  We  have  asked  His  blessing  as  our  superior. 
But  it  has  been  little  more  than  civility:  at  the  most, 
it  was  only  respect.  Alas !  alas !  it  is  useless  to  ask 
men  to  adopt  various  practices  of  thanksgiving,  when 
ot;r  Lord's  own  visit  can  hardly  force  one  upon  them 
It  is  as  if  thanksgiving  had  but  one  fixed  home  left  on 
earth,  and  that  its  tenure  even  of  that  was  continually 
becoming  more  and  more  precarious.  However,  it  will 
be  something  if  these  bad,  lazy,  listless  thanksgivings 
bring  home  to  us  how  very,  very  little  in  reality  we 
care  for  Jesus ;  and  that  if  we  could  only  have  Ilis 
grace  without  Himself,  it  would  be  just  the  religion  to 
our  mind.  Ah !  dearest  Lord  !  and  knowing  all  this, 
Thou  abidest  in  the  tabernacle ! 


THANKSGIVING.  271 


But  you  will  say,  "  It  is  hard  to  leave  us  in  this  way 
with  a  few  ill-humoured  words.  If  our  thanksgivings 
are  so  bad,  perhaps  we  might  try  to  make  them  better, 
if  we  had  any  hints  given  us  how  to  do  so."  Well ! 
let  us  see  what  our  good  books  can  tell  us. 

I  suppose  there  are  few  difficulties  more  universally 
felt  than  that  of  making  a  good  thanksgiving  after 
communion.  Spiritual  writers,  as  I  just  now  said,  tell 
us  we  ought  not  to  use  books,  at  least  not  for  some 
little  time  afterward.  They  assure  us  that  if  grace 
has  any  special  and  critical  moments  in  life,  they  are 
passing  while  Jesus  remains  in  our  hearts  by  His  sacra- 
mental presence.  St.  Alphonso  and  others  have  left  it 
on  record,  that  one  communion  rightly  made  is  enough 
to  fit  a  man  for  canonization,  and  that  the  thanksgiving 
is  the  time  when  the  soul  appropriates  to  itself  the 
abundance  of  grace,  and  drink  deepest  of  the  fountains 
of  light  and  life.  St.  Philip's  advice  was  full  of  his 
usual  gentle  wisdom.  He  recommends  that  if  we  have 
made  our  meditation  before  Mass,  we  should  not  cast 
about  for  new  thoughts  after  communion,  but  take  up 
some  train  of  thought  which  we  had  found  came  with 
unction  to  us  in  our  meditation.  This  will  prevent  a 
great  deal  of  time  being  lost  in  our  thanksgiving,  from 
our  being  at  sea  for  want  of  a  subject,  and  from  hav- 
ing so  many  things  to  say  to  our  Lord  that  we  do  not 
know  what  to  say  first.  It  is  of  a  piece  with  our 
Saint's  quiet  ways  in  spiritual  things.  He  would  have 
us  so  familiar  with  our  Lord,  that  any  unusual  or 
busy  reception  of  Him  would  rather  bespeak  the  less 
perfect  activity  of  Martha  than  the  repose  and  union 
of  Mary.  The  same  spirit  made  him  wish  that  the 
fathers  of  his  Congregation  should  not  have  a  fixed 


272  THANKSGIVING 


hour  for  Mass,  but  should  go  at  once  wheu  the  sacris- 
tan called  them. 

But  many  persons  living  in  the  world  are  not  able  to 
make  any  regular  meditation  before  communion,  and 
many  also  practise  mental  prayer  in  a  different  way, 
epending  their  time  in  what  is  called  Affective  Prayer, 
with  their  will  rather  than  their  understanding,  and 
such  are  sometimes  puzzled  to  find  thoughts  which 
they  can  resume  from  their  prayer,  when  they  have 
received  communion.  Others  again,  particularly  those 
who  have  a  very  special  devotion  to  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment, and  yet  cannot  boast  of  an  habitual  union  with 
God,  find  St.  Philip's  recommendation  unsuited  to 
them,  and  must  think  more  immediately  of  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  and  of  the  Presence  of  Jesus  within  them 
at  that  moment.  Under  these  circumstances,  and  con- 
sidering at  once  the  difficulty  and  the  importance  of 
making  a  good  thanksgiving  after  communion,  I  shall 
not  seem  tedious  if  I  furnish  my  readers  Avith  materials 
for  this  purpose.  I  will  present  them  with  an  analysis 
of  the  method  of  thanksgiving  recommended  by  Father 
Lancisius,  and  repeated  by  him  in  two  different  trea- 
tises. I  must  not  be  understood  to  recommend  it  to 
any  one  as  he  gives  it.  It  is  far  too  long  and  minute, 
and  I  believe  would  in  most  cases  smother  devotion  by 
the  multiplicity  of  acts  which  it  involves.  The  heart 
must  have  freer  play,  and  the  whole  exercise  be  much 
more  simplified.  I  give  it  therefore  to  furnish  mate- 
rials, to  serve  as  a  sort  of  mine  out  of  which  persons 
with  different  tastes,  or  the  same  persons  at  different 
times  may  supply  themselves  with  food  either  for  re- 
flection or  aspiration :  as  many  of  the  thoughts  are 
both  deep  and  beautiful. 


THANKSGIVING.  273 


1.  The  acts  which  Father  Lancisius  suggested  should 
follow  immediately  after  communion,  are  those  of  humi- 
liation. We  are  to  humble  ourselves  profoundly  befjre 
God  for  the  coming  of  so  great  a  Lord,  recalling  1.  the 
Bins  of  our  past  lives,  2.  our  present  imperfections  and 
tepidity,  3.  the  vileness  of  our  nature  compared  with 
the  Divinity  of  Christ,  and  4.  our  Blessed  Lord's  per- 
fections both  as  God  and  man. 

2.  Then  follow  acts  of  adoration.  We  are  to  adore, 
1.  the  Most  Holy  Trinity  in  the  Blessed  Eucharist,  2. 
the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus  existing  within  our- 
selves at  that  time.  3.  The  same  as  existing  in  so 
many  places  in  the  Church,  wherever  the  Blessed  Sa- 
crament is  reserved,  rejoicing  over  His  worship  and 
honour  where  the  faithful  are  ever  crowding  to  Him, 
and  mourning  over  His  dishonour  wheresoever  He  lies 
without  due  devotion  being  paid  to  Him,  or  where  He 
is  perhaps  actually  blasphemed.  4.  ^Ye  are  to  adore 
with  a  special  adoration  the  Soul  of  Christ  as  filled  with 
all  the  ornaments  of  sanctity,  with  all  merits,  and  with 
so  ancient,  constant,  and  fruitful  a  love  of  ourselves. 
5.  The  Body  of  Christ  as  having  suffered  so  many  and 
such  bitter  and  unworthy  things  on  our  account,  and 
as  at  length  slain  for  us,  and  we  must  imprint  spiritual 
kisses  on  those  parts  of  His  Body,  which,  for  our  sakes, 
were  the  most  tormented  with  wounds  and  agony. 

3.  We  must  give  thanks  also  from  the  bottom  of  our 
hearts,  1.  for  His  coming  to  us  in  this  communion,  2. 
for  His  coming  in  the  Incarnation,  3.  for  all  the  merits 
and  examples  of  virtue  during  His  life,  which  He  left 
for  our  good,  4.  for  the  institution  of  this  most  Holy 
Sacrament,  and  all  the  other  Sacraments,  5.  for  His 
death  and  our  redemption,  6.  if  we  are  priests,  for  Hii 

S 


"^ft£*4*gs. 


^ 


274  THANKSGIVING. 


Having  raised  us  to  the  priesthood,  7.  for  the  blessing 
of  creation,  8.  for  our  preservation,  9.  for  the  gift  of 
faith,  10.  for  our  justification,  11.  if  we  be  religious, 
for  our  vocation,  12.  for  our  perseverance  in  a  state  of 
grace  or  in  a  holy  calling,  13.  for  His  patience  in  bear- 
ing with  our  sins  and  imperfections,  and  those  of  others, 

14.  for  the  holiness  He  has  granted  to  so  many  saints, 

15.  for  the  trials  and  tribulations  which  we  have  at' 
any  time  had  to  undergo,  16.  for  His  assiduous  care  in 
leading  us  along  the  way  of  perfection,  17.  for  all  the 
peculiar  individual  blessings  which  we  have  received 
from  Him,  and  of  which  everybody  has  some  to  thank 
Him  for,  18.  for  all  the  blessings  He  has  conferred  on 
us  through  others,  19.  for  all  the  blessings,  general  and 
particular,  which  God  ever  has  granted,  or  ever  will 
grant  to  any  creature,  especially  those  which  He  gave 
to  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus,  to  His  Blessed 
Mother,  and  the  rest  of  the  Saints  and  elect,  20.  fo^ 
the  institution  of  the  Order,  Congregation,  or  Confra- 
ternity to  which  we  belong,  21.  for  its  propagation, 
22.  for  the  persecutions  it  has  to  endure,  which 
strengthen  and  purify  it,  23.  for  all  the  Saints  and 
learned  men  it  has  produced,  24.  for  all  who  have  had 
such  sweet  and  wonderful  vocations  to  it,  25.  for  all 
the  fruit  it  has  brought  forth  throughout  the  world, 
26.  for  all  the  good  friends  and  benefactors  who  love 
it  so  much,  27.  for  all  its  adversaries  and  persecutors 
who  give  it  so  many  opportunities  of  meriting. 

4.  Next  comes  oblation.  Oflfer  to  the  Most  Holy 
Trinity  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  which  you  have  re- 
ceived, fur  all  the  joy,  honour,  and  complacency  which 
the  Divine  Majesty  receives  therefrom,  because  of  all 
the  blessings  it  confers  on  you  and  others ;  offer  it  for 


THANKSGIVINO.  275 


your  sins  and  necessities,  and  those  of  others,  and  of 
your  friends  and  enemies,  living  or  dead.  Offer  to 
our  dear  Lord  whom  you  have  received,  in  union  vrith 
His  merits  and  holy  limbs,  1.  your  soul  and  body,  with 
all  your  faculties,  limbs,  senses,  actions,  and  rest,  de- 
siring only  the  sanctification  of  every  thing  about  you, 
that  you  may  be  a  sort  of  perpetual  holocaust,  burning 
to  the  delight  and  honour  of  the  Divine  Majesty,  con- 
suming yourself,  and  reducing  yourself  to  nothing, 
purely  for  God ;  2.  your  will  to  die,  and  endure  any 
thing,  rather  than  offend  Him  again  by  any  deliberate 
sin,  whether  mortal  or  venial ;  3.  your  purpose  always 
to  choose  the  most  perfect  things,  and  among  them 
those  rather  which  are  most  repugnant  to  your  senses, 
judgment,  will,  and  honour,  because  you  hope  thus  to 
gain  God  most  glory,  as  well  as  become  more  like 
Jesus  Crucified ;  4.  your  resolution  to  persevere  in  the 
observance  of  the  commandments  and  counsels  of  God, 
and  of  your  rules,  and  in  a  perfect  life,  however  full  it 
may  be  of  tribulations  ;  5,  your  willingness  to  suffer 
for  Christ  heavy  things,  which  those  around  you  will 
esteem  light,  and  so  you  will  gain  no  credit  for  them; 
6.  your  determination  to  seek  no  other  end  but  God 
alone  in  all  your  actions  ;  and  7.  your  burning  desire 
to  convert  all  men  to  His  pure  love,  and  your  pining 
for  this  sweet  conversion. 

5.  The  next  place  is  to  be  occupied  by  petition. 
Ask  fervently  of  Christ,  1.  the  remission  of  your  sins, 
both  as  to  the  guilt  and  punishment  of  them  ;  2.  per- 
severance in  His  grace  and  holy  living  ;  3.  if  the  Holy 
Spirit  so  inspires  you,  and  you  have  your  director's 
leave,  ask  for  sufferings,  sharp,  frequent,  various,  per- 
sonal, little  esteemed  or  sympathized  with  by  others 


276  THANKSGIVING. 


hidden,  without  cause  on  your  part,  and  without  sin 
either  of  your  own,  or  of  those  who  aflaict  you;  4,  ask 
for  a  continual  augmentation  of  humility,  poverty, 
chastity,  obedience,  faith,  hope,  charity,  prudence,  jus- 
tice, fortitude,  temperance,  patience,  devotion,  prayer, 
discerning  of  spirits,  mortification  of  the  passions,  the 
greatest  purity  of  heart  and  intention,  and  all  the  rest 
of  the  virtues.  Ask  to  have  a  heart  free  from  all  ac- 
tions either  formally  or  materially  bad,  unmeritorious 
or  tepid,  from  all  vicious  habits,  inordinate  movements 
of  the  passions,  and  from  all  debt  of  temporal  punish- 
ment, either  now  or  at  the  hour  of  death.  Ask  earn- 
estly for  grace  in  all  your  actions  to  seek  what  nature, 
perfection,  and  mortification  require,  and  further,  to  be 
able  to  elicit  all  your  actions  as  intensely  as  the  infused 
and  acquired  habits  of  virtue  exist  in  your  interior,  so 
that  all  your  actions  may  correspond  adequately  to 
your  knowledge,  and  may  most  perfectly  fulfil  in  all 
respects  the  intentions  of  the  Divine  Government.  Ask 
to  live  a  long  life  in  great  sanctity,  and  with  immense 
fruit  of  souls.  Beg  for  the  grace  to  treat  your  body 
roughly,  without  thereby  injuring  greater  goods,  such 
as  health;  ask  to  preach,  talk,  and  hear  confessions 
usefully,  and  to  have  some  pain  sent  you  at  fit  times 
whenever  you  have  any  debt  of  temporal  punishment 
to  pay.  Nay,  go  so  far  as  to  implore  our  dear  Lord 
to  enable  you,  as  near  as  may  be,  to  direct  all  your  facul- 
ties, senses,  limbs,  and  actions,  as  His  Divinity  directed 
the  same  things  in  His  Sacred  Humanity. 

Petition  God  the  Father,  1,  for  the  vigilance  and  ex- 
emplary  life  of  the  pastors  of  Holy  Church,  for  the 
conversion  of  infidels,  heretics,  schismatics,  sinners, 
and  lukewarm  souls,  and  for  the  perpetual  and  perse- 


THANKSGIVING.  <277 


vering  multiplication  of  saints,  and  their  advancement 
in  the  Avajs  of  the  Spirit ;  2,  for  the  religion  and  lovo 
of  justice  of  kings  and  temporal  rulers,  for  their  mu- 
tual concord,  and  success  in  lawful  undertakings ; 
3,  for  help  and  consolation  to  the  afflicted  in  poverty 
or  sickness,  for  patience  for  the  persecuted,  and  de- 
liverance, if  it  be  consistent  with  the  greater  glory  of 
God ;  4,  for  abundant  gifts  of  grace  and  glory  for  your 
adversaries  ;  5,  for  your  Order  or  Congregation  ask 
the  Eternal  Father  for  the  mortification  of  all  passions, 
for  devotion,  edifying  life,  zeal  for  souls,  perpetual 
fruits  of  virtue,  progress  in  sacred  sciences,  protection 
in  tribulations,  a  sufficiency  of  temporal  revenue,  and 
an  abundance  of  workmen  for  the  vineyard  of  the 
Lord  ;  6,  pray  to  Ilis  compassionate  Majesty  for  all 
the  dead  members  of  your  Congregation,  those  espe- 
cially who  have  lately  died,  and  have  been  commended 
to  the  suffrages  of  the  community ;  also  for  all  your 
adversaries  who  are  dead,  for  your  relations,  friends, 
and  others,  especially  those  for  w^iom  few  or  no  pray- 
ers are  offered,  that  they  may  be  liberated  as  soon  as 
possible  from  purgatory,  and  become  your  peculiar 
patrons  in  heaven ;  7,  pray  for  all  the  affairs  which 
superiors  have  recently  commended  to  your  prayers, 
or  if  it  be  persons  for  whom  you  are  told  to  pray,  ask 
God  to  assist  them  in  the  particular  respect  for  which 
they  have  desired  or  needed  your  prayers. 

6,  Our  next  duty  is  to  make  sundry  acts  of  different 
virtues  respecting  the  Blessed  Sacrament;  and  1,  of 
adoration.  Adore  with  divine  worship  that  sweet 
Sacrament  received  into  yourself  and  reserved  in  so 
many  churches  all  through  the  world.  This  act  of 
loving  adoration  may  be  made  more  intense  by  think- 

24 


278  THANKSGIVING. 


ing  of  all  those  churches  in  which  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment is  but  little  honoured,  or  where  He  is  as  it  were 
a  prisoner  in  the  hand  of  Greek  Schismatics,  or  of  the 
countries  in  which  grave  sins  are  committed  against 
His  worship ;  2,  of  faith,  considering  Christ,  whom 
you  have  received,  to  be  both  true  God  and  true  man, 
and  to  whose  Divinity  and  Humanity  belong  all  those 
things  which  Holy  Church  believes  of  them,  or  which 
heretics  have  denied ;  3,  of  hope,  expecting  from 
Christ,  as  God  and  First  Cause,  many  natural  gifts,  as 
well  as  supernatural  graces  and  glory,  and  expecting 
the  same  also  through  His  merits,  as  Man  ;  4,  of  chari- 
ty, first,  embracing  Him  fervently  in  your  interior  will 
as  God  and  Man  ;  secondly,  rejoicing  that  His  Divinity 
is  so  perfect  in  itself  and  in  respect  of  us,  that  we  can- 
not perfectly  know  it ;  thirdly,  exulting  that  His  Di- 
vinity is  so  worshipped  and  beloved  in  heaven  by  the 
angels  and  saints  and  by  just  men  on  earth,  and  that 
His  Body  and  Soul  are  so  unspeakably  blessed  in 
heaven,  and  adorned  with  such  incomparable  gifts ; 
fourthly,  grieving  deeply  that  so  many  sins  have  been, 
are  being,  and  will  be  committed  against  His  dear 
love  by  ourselves  or  by  others,  and  grieving  most  of 
all  that  so  many  for  whom  He  has  done  and  suffered 
so  much  are  lost  through  their  own  wilful  perversity ; 
and  then  last  of  all,  desiring  with  tenderest  love  that 
all  sins  and  imperfections  might  cease  in  the  world  as 
soon  as  possible,  that  the  just  might  be  multiplied,  and 
the  saints  advanced  in  perfection  and  perseverance ; 
that  infidels  and  all  out  of  the  true  Church  might  be 
brought  to  the  holy  faith,  and  that  God,  and  Christ,  as 
Man,  might  be  honoured  and  loved  by  men  in  that 
way,  and  to  that  degree  in  which  God   desires  that 


THANKSGIVING.  279 


Himself  and  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Christ  should  be 
loved  and  honoured. 

7.  We  must  contemplate  in  our  dear  Lord,  as  God, 
the  attributes  of  His  Divinity  and  His  other  perfec- 
tions, and  elicit  different  acts  with  respect  to  them, 
First,  we  must  think  of  His  independence,  or,  as  theo- 
logians call  it,  His  self-existence,  [aseitas,)  and  ask  Him 
to  give  us  the  grace  to  depend  on  no  one  but  on  Him 
alone,  and  on  superiors  only  for  His  sake.  Secondly, 
we  must  reflect  on  His  eternity,  and  ask  Him  for  long 
life  to  serve  Him  and  suffer  greatly  for  Him.  Then 
we  must  look  at  His  omnipresence,  and  desire  that  He 
may  be  known  and  loved  in  all  places,  and  make  a 
most  burning  act  of  love  and  adoration  to  recompense 
Him  for  all  the  sins  which  are  being  committed  this 
moment  in  the  boundless  temple  of  His  most  pure  and 
dread  immensity.  Next  we  must  think  of  the  infinite 
energy  of  our  Blessed  Lord  in  producing  both  natural 
and  supernatural  effects,  and  ask  Him  to  give  us  natu- 
ral and  supernatural  gifts  of  every  kind,  to  the  end 
we  may  be  as  a  bait  or  a  net  to  allure  all  men,  and 
captivate  them  to  His  love.  Fifthly,  we  must  consider 
His  infinite  wisdom,  and  ask  Him  to  make  us  wise  in 
all  that  regards  the  instruction  of  ourselves  or  others, 
and  to  pour  out  upon  us  the  gifts  of  counsel,  prudence, 
and  discernment  of  spirits,  and  upon  our  whole  Con- 
gregation growth  in  virtue  and  proficiency  in  theolo- 
gical studies,  without  which  last  we  shall  do  but  little 
f(^r  the  saving  of  souls.  Sixthly,  we  must  meditate 
upon  His  goodness,  and  pray  that  in  our  actions  God 
may  see  nothing  that  is  not  good ;  but  this  will  only 
be  the  case  when  all  our  actions  are  done  freely,  with- 
out imperfections,  and  for  a  supernatural  end,  which 


280  THANKSGIVINa. 


is  God  Himself.  In  the  next  place  we  must  think  of 
His  Eternal  Generation  and  Person,  by  which  He  is 
constituted  Son,  and  beg  of  Him  by  His  Divine  Filia- 
tion  to  grant  to  us,  as  far  as  is  possible,  liberally  and 
copiously,  according  to  the  measure  of  His  ordinary 
power,  all  the  natural  and  supernatural  perfections  of 
grace  and  glory  which  are  communicable  to  His  adopt- 
ed sons,  in  the  same  sort  as  they  were  communicated 
to  Him  then,  when  He  united  in  Himself  the  Person 
of  the  Eternal  Word  and  Human  Nature.  Last  of  all, 
we  must  ponder  His  actual  concurrence  to  all  the  ac- 
tions of  all  creatures,  and  implore  Him  to  give  us  the 
grace,  that  as  He  in  each  act  refers  His  concurrence  in 
and  with  us  simply  to  Himself  and  His  own  glory  as 
its  end,  so  we  in  all  out  actions,  without  one  exception, 
may  work  for,  and  because  of  Him,  and  that  so  per- 
fectly that  there  may  be  nothing  in  us,  direct  or  indi- 
rect, in  which  God's  glory  is  not  sought  and  found. 

In  the  same  way  we  may  distinguish  other  perfec- 
tions in  God,  and  elicit  acts  connected  with  them :  as, 
for  example,  of  joy,  rejoicing  that  God  has  these  per- 
fections in  Himself,  and  of  thanksgiving,  because  He 
has  manifested  them  to  us,  and  has  communicated  to 
us  effects  proportioned  to  them.  In  like  manner  we 
may  distinguish  the  perfections  of  our  Lord's  Sacred 
Humanity,  as  well  those  which  have  to  do  with  the 
integrity  of  human  nature,  such  as  the  body  with  its 
limbs,  and  the  soul  with  its  powers,  both  rational  and 
irrational,  as  those  also  which  are  superadded  to  na- 
ture, such  as  habits  and  acts,  whether  permanent,  like 
the  Beatific  Vision,  or  transient,  as  talking,  praying, 
working  miracles,  and  the  like.  In  considering  the 
powers  and  habits  of  His  blessed  Soul,  we  should  ask 


THANKSGIVING.  281 


Him  to  make  our  powers  as  like  as  possible  to  His,  to 
adorn  them  with  habits  as  His  were  adorned,  and  to 
excite  them  to  acts  as  He  excited  His  own.  When  we 
look  at  ilis  Body  hanging  on  the  Cross,  we  must  con- 
sider each  limb,  and  pray  that  as  the  Word  in  that  Body 
directed  and  moved  that  limb  in  the  most  perfect  way, 
so  He,  the  same  Word,  who  has  now  entered  into  us 
by  holy  Communion,  may  rule  and  direct  not  only  our 
interior  powers,  but  all  our  limbs  and  outward  actions, 
so  that  we  may  be,  as  it  were,  an  impression  and 
image  of  the  Sacred  Humanity,  exhibiting  all  our  in- 
ward and  outward  actions  in  a  manner  the  most 
resembling  that  wherein  our  Lord  acted  both  inwardly 
and  outwardly ;  for  this  is  the  transformation,  which 
the  saints  and  holy  doctors  enumerate  among  the  spe- 
cial fruits  of  Communion, 

8.  We  are  to  conclude  our  thanksgiving  by  present- 
ing our  Blessed  Lord,  whom  we  have  received  in  the 
Holy  Eucharist,  to  all  the  orders  of  the  beatified  spirits. 
To  the  holy  angels  we  may  say,  Behold,  ye  His  highest 
ministers,  who  do  His  word,  behold  the  First-born  of 
the  Eternal  Father  whom  at  that  heavenly  Father's 
bidding  ye  did  adore  when  He  entered  into  the  world, 
and  obtain  for  me  the  grace  to  serve  Him  with  the 
same  spirit  and  truth  wherewith  ye  served  Him  during 
your  probation,  and  serve  Him  now  in  your  heavenly 
and  blessed  life.  To  the  patriarchs  and  prophets  wo 
may  say,  Behold,  ye  ambassadors  of  heaven,  and  part- 
ners of  the  marvellous  secrets  of  God,  that  Redeemer 
promised  from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  whom  ye 
desired  and  so  long  a  time  expected,  and  make  me 
with  all  the  powers  and  affections  of  my  heart  to  pant 
after  Him,  and  to  sigh  for  my  Beloved,  day  and  night 
2*» 


282  THANKSGIVING. 


To  the  holy  apostles  we  may  say,  Behold,  illustrioui 
preachers  of  the  gospel,  your  beloved  Master  whoin  ye 
did  love  so  ardently  with  your  whole  hearts,  and  make 
me  to  love  Him  fervently  above  all  things,  and  with 
my  deepest  affections.  To  the  holy  martyrs.  Behold, 
brave  witnesses  of  the  faith,  Christ  crucified,  for  the 
love  of  whom  ye  did  so  willingly  shed  your  blood ;  oh 
gain  for  me  the  grace  always  to  be  suffering  pain  foi  . 
Ilim,  and  to  live  ever  on  the  cross,  and  that  a  hard 
cross,  whether  nature  with  her  strength  fastens  me 
upon  it,  or  the  hands  of  evil  men,  and  straight  from 
the  cross  to  pass  unto  my  Lord.  To  the  confessor 
pontiffs.  Behold,  ye  shepherds  of  the  Lord's  flock,  the 
Immaculate  Lamb,  whom  ye  were  once  wont  to  sacrifice 
to  Almighty  God  in  the  odour  of  sweetness  on  the  holy 
altar,  enable  me  to  occupy  myself  worthily  in  so  great 
a  sacrifice,  to  offer  it  aright  to  God,  and  ever  associating 
myself  with  that  sacred  Oblation,  to  offer  myself  per- 
petually to  Ilim  by  good  works  in  the  odour  of  sweet- 
ness. To  confessors  religious.  Behold,  faithful  servant 
of  my  Lord,  your  sweet  and  beloved  Lord,  for  whom 
in  reality  as  well  as  in  desire,  ye  did  forsake  all  the 
pleasures  of  this  world;  enable  me  for  His  love  to  per- 
severe till  death  in  my  state,  however  dishonourable  or 
poor,  and  to  climb  to  the  height  of  great  holiness  for 
the  pure  love  of  God  alone.  To  the  saints  and  beati 
of  our  own  congregation.  Behold,  most  dear  brothers, 
your  Leader,  to  whom  in  word  and  work  ye  were  so 
truly  conformed  in  this  life,  grant  to  me  and  all  my 
brothers  still  fighting  for  His  honour  in  the  Church 
below  a  plentiful  prey  of  souls,  without  detriment  to 
our  interior  piety,  and  multiply  our  numbers  with 
crowds  of  excellent  labourers  called  to  the  same  harvest 


THANKSGIVING,  U88 

who  shall  pass  with  mighty  sheaves  of  merits  to  Ilis 
blissful  society  and  yours.  To  the  holy  virgins,  Behold, 
ye  spouses  of  the  Immaculate  Lamb,  Ilim  for  whom 
ye  did  keep  your  virginity  Avith  so  much  exultation; 
make  me  to  appear  ever  before  the  eyes  of  your  Beloved 
and  mine,  pure  both  in  heart  and  work,  and  free  from 
all  stain  of  sin  and  all  obligation  of  punishment,  to 
pass  straight  from  this  life  to  Him  in  heaven.  To  all 
the  saints.  Behold,  my  dearest  friends,  who  are  the 
consolation  of  my  poor  soul,  the  Master,  Author,  and 
reward  of  your  sanctity;  get  me  grace  to  walk  as  ye 
did  by  mighty  strides  of  holiness,  and  conformably  to 
the  spirit  of  my  institute,  so  that  the  increasing  series 
of  my  years  may  never  find  me  lingering  where  I  was 
before,  but  ever  mounting  upward  to  the  heights  of 
holiness. 

Then  we  may  say  to  our  dearest  Lord,  "  Now,  0  my 
Lord,  I  retire  from  Thee  for  a  little  while,  yet  not 
without  Thee!  No!  for  Thou  art  the  consolation, 
felicity,  and  every  good  of  my  soul.  I  commend  myself 
with  all  vehemence  to  Thy  most  ample  charity,  with 
all  my  brothers,  friends,  and  enemies.  Love  us,  0 
Lord,  as  much  as  Thou  canst,  and  inebriate  us  with 
Thy  love,  and  transform  us  into  Thy  likeness,  0  joy 
and  exultation  of  our  hearts  ;  and  grant  that  we  may 
live  wholly  in  Thee,  be  wholly  occupied  with  Thee  and 
for  Thee,  and  that  we  may  have  no  object  in  any  of 
our  words  and  actions,  within  us  or  without,  but  only 
Thee,  our  Love  and  our  every  good ;  who  livest  and 
leignest,''  &c.  And  last  of  all  we  may  say  the  Respice, 
"  Look  down,  we  beseech  Thee,  0  Lord,  on  this  Thy 
ftimily,  for  which  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  wicked  men,  and 


284  THANKSGIVING. 


to  suffer  the  torment  of  the  cross ;  who  liveth  and 
reigneth  with  Thee  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  one  God, 
world  without  end.     Amen." 

Now,  I  repeat  that  I  am  not  advising  any  one  to  use 
this  thanksgiving  just  as  it  stands,  but  only  that  we 
should  draw  from  it,  according  as  we  require,  streams 
of  living  water  to  freshen  our  dry  hearts,  and  to  adorn 
them  with  the  variety  of  devotion.  It  deserves  to  be 
carefully  studied ;  for  it  really  is  a  treatise  of  holy  liv- 
ing in  itself,  and  that  of  the  most  consistent  description. 
It  portrays,  and  would  help  to  form  a  definite  spiri- 
tual character.  There  are  in  it  wishes  taken  for 
granted,  and  petitions  offered  to  God,  at  which  perhaps 
we  start  and  tremble.  Even  these  are  good  for  our 
souls.  Lancisius  gives  them  as  if  no  devout  soul  would 
dream  of  shrinking  from  them.  We  must  not  use  them 
out  of  our  own  heads  ;  but  it  is  good  to  be  humbled ; 
and  it  must  humble  us  to  see  how  far  off  we  are  from 
what  we  ought  to  be,  and,  perhaps,  which  is  more  to 
the  point,  from  what  we  thought  ourselves  to  be.  Wc 
are  humbled,  but  not  discouraged.  For  if  we  were 
discouraged,  it  would  show  that  we  had  really  no  spi- 
rituality in  us  at  all,  and  were  but  standing  yet  by  the 
Btarting-place,  whereas,  we  should  by  this  time  have 
been  at  least  in  sight  of  the  blessed  goal. 

There  is  also  another  thing  in  this  form  of  thanks- 
giving, which  deserves  to  be  dwelt  upon.  It  brings 
out  so  very  much  the  devotion  to  the  Person  of  the 
Eternal  Word.  The  want  of  this  is  the  cause  of  much 
shallowness,  and  of  much  drypess  in  prayer ;  and  espe- 
cially to  it  may  be  traced  the  absence  of  that  deep  spirit 
of  adoration  which  should  distinguish  the  devotion  to 
the  Blessed  Sacrament,  and  also  the  barrenness  of  soul 


THANKSGIVING.  285 


■which  frequent  communion  seems  sometimes  rather  to 
increase  than  to  relieve.  Let  us  only  preach  and  teach 
the  Divinity  of  Jesus,  no  matter  how  uninviting  may 
be  the  notion  of  theological  sermons,  and  we  shall  soon 
see  how  hearts  will  melt  without  eloquence  of  ours, 
and  how  Bethlehem  and  Calvary  will  give  out  their 
rich  depths  of  tenderness  to  the  poorest  and  the  simplest 
of  Christ's  humble  poor.  Oh,  to  how  many  has  medi- 
tation become  a  different  thing,  when  they  carried  to 
the  Crib  or  the  Cross  the  light  of  our  dear  Lord^s 
Divinity  along  with  them!  Though  they  were  ordi- 
narily in  no  high  states  of  prayer,  nor  in  the  practice 
of  self-crucifying  austerities,  their  prayer,  through  the 
beam  of  this  one  doctrine,  has  often  ended,  as  if  they 
were  very  contemplatives,  in  the  bosom  of  the  Most 
Holy  Trinity.  Many  have  there  been  who  could  not 
put  into  words  what  happened  to  them  ;  but  to  whose 
state  of  mind,  for  a  little  while  at  least,  Dante's  words* 
would  not  have  been  unsuitable : — 

Then  "  Glory  to  the  Father,  to  the  Son, 
And  to  the  Holy  Ghost,"  rang  aloud 
Throughout  all  Paradise;  that  with  the  song 
My  spirit  reeled,  so  passing  sweet  the  strain. 
And  what  I  saw  was  equal  ecstasy ; 
One  universal  smile  it  seemed  of  all  things ; 
Joy  past  compare ;  gladness  unutterahle ; 
Imperishable  life  and  peace  and  love ; 
Exhaustless  riches,  and  immeasurable  bliss 

But  it  is  now  time  to  ask  ourselves  the  important; 
question,  what  has  been  our  own  practice  hitherto  Avith 
regard  to  the  duty  of  thanksgiving  in  general  ?  What 
ib  our  habitual  feeling  about  God's  numberless  blessingi 

•  Parad.  xxvii. 


286  THANKSGIVINa. 


to  US  ?  llow  long  a  time  have  we  ever  spent  in  sum- 
ming up  God's  blessings  to  us,  even  when  we  have  been 
in  retreat  ?  St.  Ignatius  wisely  tells  us  to  commence 
our  examination  of  conscience  every  day  with  counting 
up  the  mercies  of  God  and  thanking  Ilim  for  them. 
Have  we  so  much  as  kept  faithfully  to  this  little  prac- 
tice ?  Many  of  us  have  regular  times  in  the  day  for 
different  spiritual  duties ;  have  we  any  time  specially 
set  apart  for  thanksgiving  ?  Many  of  us,  again,  keep  in 
our  prayer-books  a  little  note  of  the  things  and  persons 
to  pray  for  ;  have  we  any  similar  memento  of  the  bless- 
ings for  which  we  desire  daily  to  thank  our  heavenly 
Father  ?  How  often  have  we  besieged  the  Throne  of 
grace  for  weeks  and  weeks  with  Paters,  Aves,  Misereres, 
Memorares,  rosaries,  communions,  and  even  penances, 
for  something  we  desired ;  and  when  at  last  our  dear 
Lord  condescended  to  our  importunity,  what  proportion 
did  our  thanksgiving  bear  to  our  supplication  ?  How 
long  did  it  last?  In  what  did  it  consist  ?  With  what 
fervour  and  increase  of  love  was  it. accompanied?  Was 
it  a  single  Te  Deum,  a  hurried  Deo  gratias,  and  we  took 
with  an  ungraceful  eagerness  what  God  held  out  to  us, 
almost  as  if  it  was  our  wages,  and  then,  beyond  a  gene- 
ral vague  feeling  of  gratitude,  thought  nothing  more 
about  it  ?  Alas  !  I  fear  we  have  all  great  need  to  take 
shame  to  ourselves  in  this  respect.  So  far  from  having 
an  abiding  spirit  of  thanksgiving,  or  a  keen  life-long 
recollection  of  God's  mercies,  and  a  loving  regularity 
in  the  worship  and  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving,  we  go  on 
letting  the  Holy  Spirit  Himself  touch  our  hearts  with 
an  intimate  sense  of  our  obligations  to  God  and  our 
dependence  upon  Him,  waiting  till  He  does  do  so,  and 
then  feebly  responding  to  His  calt;  so  that  we  let  Him, 


THANKSGIVINa.  287 


as  it  were,  ask  for  our  thanks,  rather  than  pay  them 
with  a  free  heart,  and  out  of  an  abounding  love.  We 
should  be  quick  enough  to  see  the  wretchedness  of  all 
this,  if  a  fellow-creature  did  it  to  ourselves.  But 
answer  these  questions  honestly  to  your  guardian 
angels,  and  then  say  if  you  think  I  exaggerated  when 
I  said  that  the  disproportion  of  thanksgiving  to  prayer 
was  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  world,  and  one  of  its 
saddest  wonders  too. 

And  what  is  the  cause  of  all  this  ?  I  do  not  care  if 
I  write  it  again  and  again,  till  you  are  weary  of  reading 
it,  if  only  that  would  insure  your  remembering  it. 
It  comes  from  your  perverse  refusal  to  loojk  at  God  as 
your  Father.  Independent  of  open  sin,  there  is  scarcely 
a  misery  which  does  not  come  from  these  hard,  dry, 
churlish  views  of  God.  That  is  the  root  of  the  evil. 
You  must  lay  the  axe  there,  if  you  really  desire  to  be 
other  than  you  are.  No  schemes  for  self-improve- 
ment will  stand  in  the  stead  of  it.  You  may  meditate 
and  examine  your  conscience  and  tell  your  beads,  and 
little  enough  will  come  of  it,  as  you  have  so  often 
found  already.  Oh  how  wonderfully  people  can  be 
regular  in  making  their  daily  meditation,  and  yet  it 
never  melts  into  them  !  Not  a  passion  is  subdued,  not 
an  unloveliness  smoothed  away !  They  have  the  cus- 
tom of  prayer,  without  the  gift  of  it.  You  may  do 
penances,  and  they  will  rather  harden  your  heart  in  a 
delusion  of  vain-glorious  humility,  than  melt  into  simple 
genuine  love.  The  very  sacraments  will  work  only 
like  machines  out  of  order.  Whether  it  is  stunted 
growth  in  the  spiritual  life  which  you  deplore,  or  the 
absence  of  all  sensible  devotion,  or  incapacity  to  make 
or  keep  generous  resolutions,  or  teasing  relapses  into 

16* 


288  THANKSGIVING. 


unworthyimperfections,  or  want  of  reverence  in  prayer, 
or  lack  of  sweetness  with  others,  in  almost  every  case 
the  mischief  may  be  traced  up  to  an  unaffectionate  view 
of  God.  You  must  get  clear  of  this.  You  must  cul- 
tivate a  filial  feeling  toward  Ilim.  You  must  pray  to 
the  Holy  Spirit  for  His  gift  of  piety,  whose  special 
office  it  is  to  produce  this  feeling.  Your  most  promi- 
nent idea  of  God  must  be,  as  Him  "  of  whom  all 
paternity  is  named  in  heaven  and  on  earth.''  You 
must  remember  that  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  is  the  one  true 
Spirit ;  and  that  He  is  the  Spirit  of  adoption,  whereby 
we  cry,  Abba,  Father  !  You  will  never  be  right  until 
your  view  of  God  as  your  Father  swallows  up  all  your 
other  views  of  Him,  or  at  least  till  they  are  brought 
into  harmonious  subordination  to  that  view,  which  is 
the  sweet  soul  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  life  of  our  Blessed 
Saviour's  teaching.  A  man  could  not  do  better  than 
devote  his  whole  life  to  be  the  apostle  of  this  one  idea, 
the  compassionate  Paternity  of  God. 

In  matters  of  spiritual  progress  our  interests  are 
identical  with  God's  glory.  This  is  another  of  His  lov- 
ing contrivances.  Hence  we  may  still  further  persuade 
ourselves  to  the  practice  of  thanksgiving  by  reflecting 
on  the  benefits  which  result  from  it  to  ourselves  in  a 
spiritual  point  of  view.  Growth  in  holiness  is  nothing 
but  the  continual  descent  upon  us  of  those  fresh  graces 
which  crown  every  act  of  correspondence  on  our  part 
to  graces  already  received ;  and  there  is  nothing,  as  we 
know,  which  so  multiplies  graces  upon  us,  or  causes 
God  to  throw  the  doors  of  His  treasury  so  wide  open, 
as  the  devotion  of  thanksgiving.  But  it  is  not  only  in 
this  way  that  it  helps  us  on  in  holiness.  Its  effects 
upon  our  mind  must  also  be  taken  into  account.  Many 


THANKSGIVING.  289 


persons  try  to  advance  in  spirituality,  and  are  held 
back,  as  it  were,  by  some  invisible  hand.  The  fact  is, 
and  they  do  not  realize  it,  they  have  never  been  tho- 
roughly converted  to  God.  They  have  stayed  too  short 
a  time  in  the  purgative  way  of  the  spiritual  life,  or  they 
have  bargained  with  God,  and  kept  back  some  attach- 
ment, or  wished  to  loosen  themselves  from  unworthy 
habits  gently  and  gradually,  so  as  to  be  spared  the  pain 
of  conversion.  Now  thanksgiving  swiftly  but  imper- 
ceptibly turns  our  religion  into  a  service  of  love ;  it 
draws  us  to  take  God's  view  of  things,  to  range  our- 
selves on  His  side  even  against  ourselves,  and  to  iden- 
tify ourselves  with  His  interests  even  when  they  seem 
to  be  in  opposition  to  our  own.  Hence  we  are  led  to 
break  more  effectually  with  the  world,  and  not  to  trail 
its  clouds  and  mists  along  with  us  on  our  road  to 
heaven.  Hence  also  we  come  to  root  and  ground  our- 
selves more  effectually  in  the  sense  of  our  own  vileness 
and  worse  than  nothingness  befora  God.  And  what  is 
all  this  but  to  make  our  conversion  more  thorough  and 
complete  ? 

Neither  is  the  effect  of  thanksgiving  less  upon  our 
growth  than  it  is  upon  our  conversion.  All  growth 
comes  of  love ;  and  love  is  at  once  both  the  cause  and 
effect  of  thanksgiving.  What  light  and  air  are  to  plants, 
that  is  the  sense  of  God's  Presence  to  the  virtues  ;  and 
thanksgiving  makes  this  sensible  Presence  of  God  al- 
most a  habit  in  our  souls.  For  it  leads  us  continually 
to  see  mercies  which  we  should  not  otherwise  have  per- 
ceived, and  it  enables  us  far  more  worthily  to  appreci- 
ate their  value,  and  in  some  degree  to  sound  the  abyss 
of  Divine  condescension  out  of  which  they  come.  More- 
over, the  practice  of  thanksgiving  in  ourselves  leads  us 
T  25 


290  THANKSGIVING. 


to  be  distressed  at  the  absence  of  it  in  others ;  and  this 
keeps  our  love  of  God  delicate  and  sensitive,  and  breeds 
in  us  a  spirit  of  reparation,  which  is  especially  conge- 
nial to  the  growth  of  holiness.  Our  hearts  are  enlarged 
while  we  are  magnifying  God,  and  when  our  hearts  are 
enlarged  we  run  the  way  of  His  commandments,  where 
we  have  only  walked  or  crept  before.  We  feel  a  secret 
force  in  overcoming  obstacles  and  in  despising  fears,  and 
altogether  a  liberty  in  well-doing,  which  we  used  not  to 
feel  before  ;  and  all  because  thanksgiving  has  made  us 
measure  the  height  of  God's  goodness  and  the  depth  of 
our  vileness  ;  and  so  nothing  looks  too  much  or  too  hard 
where  the  glory  of  God  is  concerned.  Like  Areuna  in 
the  time  of  the  pestilence,  we  give  to  the  king  as  kings 
ourselves,  and  in  the  spirit  of  kings.  Our  hearts  are 
crowned  with  thanksgiving. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  lightly  of  happiness  in 
religion,  of  enjoyment  in  religious  services,  of  sweetness 
in  prayer,  of  gladness  in  mortification,  and  of  sensible 
devotion.  True  it  is  that  when  God  subtracts  them,  it 
is  not  necessarily  in  anger  or  as  a  chastisement ;  and 
whatever  be  the  cause,  our  plain  duty  is  to  submit  our- 
selves to  His  sweet  though  inscrutable  Will.  But  this 
does  not  hinder  all  these  things  from  being  mighty  aids 
in  the  spiritual  life ;  and  therefore  to  be  desired  and 
coveted  with  earnestness,  though  in  a  submissive  spirit. 
Who  does  not  know  cases  where  every  thing  seems  to 
go  wrong  because  a  person  has  no  happiness  in  reli- 
gion? Even  at  Mass  and  benediction  a  vail  is  over 
their  hearts,  w^hich  neither  music,  nor  brightness,  nor 
yet  the  Divine  Presence  can  go  through.  God's  bless- 
ings are  as  dull  to  such  people,  as  His  chastisements 
are  to  the  generality  of  men.     Prayer  is  a  penance ; 


THANKSGIVING.  291 


confession  a  torture  ;  communion  a  very  rack.  What 
God  blesses  for  them,  irritates  like  a  sore.  What  He 
fills  with  peace,  troubles  them  with  disquietude.  They 
have  no  light  but  the  gloom  of  their  own  perverse 
moodiness ;  and  they  have  no  song  but  peevishness. 
Inquire  if  such  persons  have  ever  had  a  spirit  of 
thanksgiving,  and  you  will  find  you  have  hit  exactly 
on  the  characteristic  omission  of  their  lives.  Perhaps 
they  have  been  converts  to  the  holy  faith.  They  have 
obeyed  grace  grudgingly.  When  they  were  safe  in  the 
Church,  they  would  see  difficulties  every  where,  from 
the  pope  and  Roman  manners  downward.  Imaginary 
evils  surrounded  every  step.  There  was  temporal  un- 
happiness  ;  and  was  the  faith  worth  it  ?  There  was  the 
annoyance  of  learning  a  new  religion,  and  new  ceremo- 
nies, and  this  made  them  snappish.  Then  preachers 
said  such  strong  things ;  and  they  must  complain  to  a 
score  of  people  of  this,  as  if  every  thing  was  to  be  suit- 
ed to  them.  It  was  the  Assumption,  and  the  dear  good 
Irish  wanted  to  hear  of  their  Mother's  Coronation ;  but 
then  this  important  convert  was  at  church,  and  should 
have  been  consulted.  It  was  so  unkind,  so  injurious, 
in  his  or  her  presence,  to  say  our  Lady  had  twelve  stars 
on  her  head.  Were  they  planets  or  fixed  stars  ?  The 
whole  matter  is  full  of  difficulties.  Really,  preachers 
should  be  more  careful !  Then  in  the  confessional  it 
was  all  so  uncomfortable,  so  coarse,  and  vulgar,  and 
matter  of  fact.  Thus,  from  one  cause  or  other,  the 
poor  convert  has  been  miserable  ever  since  conversion  , 
and  why  ?  Immersed  in  self,  and  magnifying  self, 
seeking  consolations,  and  hungering  after  sympathy, 
such  persons  have  hardly  once  fallen  like  children  on 
their  knees  to  thank  God  for  the  miracle  of  love  which 


292  THANKSGIVING. 


brought  them  where  they  are.  A  thankful  heart  would 
have  taken  joyously  all  the  incipient  difficulties  of  its 
new  position,  as  a  penance  for  the  hard-heartedness 
which  had  given  grace  so  much  trouble  and  so  many 
efforts  in  the  process  of  conversion.  But  these  persons 
were  not  thankful,  and  so  they  are  not  happy.  This 
is  another  point  to  be  made  much  of,  that  happiness  in 
religion  comes  from  the  spirit  of  thanksgiving. 

Now  for  a  few  words  to  show  how  by  this  devotion 
of  thanksgiving  we  can  do  our  three  things,  promote 
the  glory  of  God,  advance  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and 
help  in  the  saving  of  souls.  First,  as  to  the  promotion 
of  the  glory  of  God.  He  has  chosen  to  rest  His  glory 
in  great  measure  on  the  praise  and  thanksgiving  of  His 
creatures.  Thanksgiving  was  one  of  the  ends  for  which 
He  created  us.  Neither  is  there  any  matter  in  which 
He  is  so  defrauded  of  His  glory  as  in  this,  and  none 
consequently  in  which  He  looks  more  for  reparation 
from  His  faithful  servants.  No  one  ever  thanks  Him 
with  devout  intention  who  does  not  at  once  and  there- 
by give  Him  glory.  I  said  that  joy  came  of  thanksgiv- 
ing ;  and  the  spirit  of  thanksgiving  seems,  not  only  to 
accompany  that  joy  which  is  a  special  fruit  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  but  to  be  manifested  in  all  the  special  devotions 
which  have  to  do  with  joy.  Those  who  have  had  a  spe- 
cial devotion  to  St.  Raphael,  the  angel  of  joy,  have  ge- 
nerally had  a  more  than  usual  gift  of  thanksgiving. 
Wo  see  this  even  in  the  book  of  Tobias,  without  com- 
ing to  the  examples  of  the  Saints  most  devoted  to  that 
dear  spirit,  as  St.  John  of  God,  the  Blessed  Benvenuta, 
St.  Giacinta  Mariscotti,  and  others.  "Father!  he  gave 
joy  ;"  this  is  the  character  the  young  Tobias  gives  St. 
Raphael.     And  when  he  is   about  to  make  himself 


THANKSGIVING.  293 


known,  he  says  to  them,  "  Bless  ye  the  God  of  heaven  ; 
give  glory  to  Ilim  in  the  sight  of  all  that  live,  because 
lie  hath  shoAvn  His  merc}'^  to  you.  For  it  is  good  to  hide 
the  secret  of  a  king ;  but  honourable  to  reveal  and  con- 
fess the  works  of  God."  And  again,  "When  I  was 
with  you,  I  was  there  by  the  will  of  God  :  bless  ye  Ilini 
and  sing  praises  to  Ilim.''  And  again,  "  It  is  time  that 
I  return  to  Him  that  sent  me ;  but  bless  ye  God,  and 
publish  all  His  wonderful  works."  Probably  as  ho 
parted  from  them,  he  let  them  see  a  glimpse  of  his  an- 
gelic beauty,  as  they  immediately  went  into  an  ecstasy 
of  three  hours,  and  what  it  left  behind  was  the  spirit 
of  thanksgiving.  "  Then  they,  lying  prostrate  for  three 
hours  upon  their  face,  blessed  God  ;  and  rising  up,  they 
told  all  his  wonderful  works."  "  Then  Tobias  the  elder 
opening  his  mouth,  said,  "  Give  glory  to  the  Lord,  ye 
children  of  Israel.  See  what  He  hath  done  for  us,  and 
with  fear  and  trembling  give  ye  glory  to  Him,  and  ex- 
tol the  eternal  King  of  worlds.  Bless  ye  the  Lord,  all 
his  elect,  keep  days  of  joy,  and  give  glory  to  Him.  Je- 
rusalem, city  of  God,  give  glory  to  the  Lord  for  thy 
good  things."  And  how  beautiful  was  his  close,  after 
the  angel  had  left  his  mantle  of  joy  and  thanksgiving 
on  the  holy  old  man  !  "  The  rest  of  his  life  was  in  joy  ; 
and  with  great  increase  of  the  fear  of  God,  he  departed 
in  peace."  And  with  the  young  Tobias  the  joy  lived 
after  him,  and  was  instead  of  mourning  for  him  ;  for  it 
is  said,  "And  after  he  had  lived  ninety-nine  years  in 
the  fear  of  the  Lord,  with  joy  they  buried  him  ;  like  the 
joy  there  is  so  often  fcund  in  religious  houses,  when 
God  has  called  one  of  the  community  to  Himself,  and 
which  is  sometimes  almost  a  scandal  to  externs  who 
know  not  the  deep  unearthly  spirit  of  the  cloister. 

25* 


294  THANKSGIVINO. 


Secondly,  this  same  devotion  gives  us  great  means 
of  furthering  the  interests  of  Jesus.  What  was  there 
upon  earth  which  He  sought  more  vehemently  than 
His  Father's  glory?  Though  it  is  said  of  Him  that 
He  knew  what  was  in  men  and  would  not  trust  Him- 
self to  them,  yet  He  vouchsafed  to  appear  surprised 
that  only  one  of  the  ten  lepers  returned  to  give  thanks 
to  God.  And  how  full  of  mystery  is  that  outburst  of 
thanksgiving  on  His  own  part,  when  He  thanked  His 
Father,  and  confessed  before  Him,  because  He  had 
hidden  His  mysteries  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and 
had  revealed  them  to  babes.  But  there  is  one  way 
especially  which  I  would  venture  to  suggest  as  a 
means  of  promoting  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  that  in 
a  most  loving  manner,  and  with  little  trouble  to  our- 
selves. It  is  by  assuming  to  ourselves  a  little  apos- 
tolate  to  spread  the  practice  of  thanksgiving.  There 
are  few  of  us  who  do  not  influence  some  others,  chil- 
dren, or  servants,  or  friends.  Let  us  teach  them  to 
make  more  frequent,  more  systematic,  more  fervent 
thanksgiving.  Let  us  say  a  seasonable  word  for  this 
practice  whenever  we  can.  If  each  of  the  now  nearly 
ten  thousand  members  of  the  Confraternity  of  the 
Precious  Blood  persuaded  five  people,  in  honour  of  our 
dear  Lord's  Five  Wounds,  to  make  daily  thanksgiving, 
these  five  would  in  turn  spread  it  to  others,  as  the  rip- 
ples spread  on  the  surface  of  a  pond  ;  and  anyhow, 
how  much  would  Jesus  rejoice  at  this  harvest  of  God's 
glory  from  something  like  fifty  thousand  souls,  making 
daily  one  act  of  thanksgiving  more  than  they  otherwise 
^culd  have  done,  one  Deo  gratias,  if  it  were  nothing 
more.  Think  of  all  that  is  involved  of  grace,  merit, 
j^lory,  worship,  praise,  acceptableness  in  one  Deo  gra- 


TIIANKSGIVIiNG.  "295 


tias  said  with  devout  intention ;  and  yet  with  but  a 
little  exertion  the  Confraternity  could  send  up  to  the 
blessed  but  outraged  Majesty  of  God  in  each  year 
eighteen  millions  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of 
these  supernatural  acts !  Oh,  why  do  we  let  so  much 
that  we  could  do  for  God  slip  by  without  a  trial  I 
AVhat  a  homage  of  love  to  Jesus  would  this  easy  apos- 
tolate  of  thanksgiving  be !  Let  us  begin  at  once,  this 
very  day  ;  for  time  is  flowing  from  under  us,  and  we 
have  kept  God's  glory  waiting  long  enough  ! 

Thus  also  in  schools  and  seminaries,  and  in  domes- 
tic families,  especially  where  there  are  many  young 
children,  out  of  whose  pure  mouths  God  has  ordained 
His  praise,  little  associations  might  be  formed  to  say 
some  ejaculation  of  thanksgiving  daily  by  themselves, 
and  where  it  seems  feasible  to  make  some  little  act  of 
thanksgiving  in  common,  as  well  as  to  endeavour  to 
put  more  of  a  thoughtful  intention  into  the  grace  be- 
fore and  after  meals.  The  object  of  these  little  asso- 
ciations might  be  to  thank  God  generally  for  all  His 
goodness  to  Ilis  creatures,  or  especially  for  the  Incar- 
nation, or  again  for  His  mercifully  giving  us  Mary  to 
be  our  mother  as  well  as  His.  An  Irish  school  might 
thus  unite  morning  and  afternoon  in  a  little  act  of 
thanksgiving  for  the  gift  of  the  most  holy  Roman 
faith ;  and  thus  the  children  could  at  once  bless  God 
for  the  national  grace  of  their  country,  make  repara- 
tion for  apostasies,  and  also  themselves  gain  a  habit 
which  would  be  an  effectual  protection  to  them  in  the 
temptations  of  after-life.  These  associations  might  be 
connected,  if  it  was  thought  well,  with  devotion  to  the 
Holy  Angels,  whose  life  is  one  incessant  song  of  grate 
ful  praise,  and  thus  the  virtue  of  purity,  the  attendant 


296  THANKSGIVING. 


gift  of  this  devotion,  might  at  the  same  time  be  fos- 
tered in  the  souls  of  the  youthful  members.  If  we 
think  aright  of  the  glory  of  God,  in  one  word,  if  we 
love  Him,  these  things  will  not  seeni  small,  nor  their 
blessing  insignificant.  We  have  much  lost  time  to 
make  up  in  this  matter  of  thanksgiving. 

Oh,  what  glory  cannot  one  man  get  for  our  dearest 
Lord  if  he  only  lays  himself  out  to  do  it !  St.  Jerome, 
whilt  he  lived  in  the  East,  often  heard  the  oriental 
monks  intoning  their  doxology.  Glory  be  to  the  Father, 
and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost.  It  took  with 
him,  and  he  asked  Pope  Damasus  to  establish  it  in  the 
Western  Church,  where,  humanly  speaking,  but  for 
him  it  would  never  have  been  used.  Who  can  count 
the  million  millions  of  times  that  doxology  has  been 
used  in  the  West  with  loving  and  devout  intention? 
Look  how  often  it  comes  in  the  Divine  Oflfice.  Now, 
every  time  St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi  said  it,  she 
accompanied  it  by  a  mental  ofi*ering  of  herself  to  the 
Most  Holy  Trinity,  and  bowed  her  head,  as  it  were,  to 
the  block  to  be  martyred  for  the  faith.  Whenever  St. 
Alphonso,  in  his  old  age,  heard  of  some  good  news  for 
the  glory  of  God  or  the  welfare  of  Holy  Church,  he 
cried  out  with  heartfelt  emotion,  "  Gloria  Patri,  et 
Filio,  et  Spiritui  Sancto."  Great  things  are  told  us  of 
the  devotion  of  the  Blessed  Paul  of  the  Cross  to  this 
doxology,  and  he  taught  the  same  spiritual  devotion  to 
his  religious.  The  lives  of  the  saints  would  doubtless 
furnish  us  with  many  other  devotions  of  heroic  love 
which  have  been  connected  with  this  doxology.  Yet 
if  St.  Jerome  had  not  one  day  asked  Pope  Damasus 
to  introduce  it  into  the  Western  Church,  all  this  glory 
would  have  been  lost  to  God.     When  men  do  any  thing 


THANKSGIVIxNG.  297 


for  God,  the  very  least  thing,  they  never  know  where 
it  will  end,  nor  what  amount  of  work  it  will  do  for 
Him.  Love's  secret,  therefore,  is  to  be  always  doing 
things  for  God,  and  not  to  mind  because  they  are  such 
very  little  ones.  "  Cast  thy  bread  upon  the  running 
waters ;  for  after  a  long  timo  thou  shalt  find  it  again. 
In  the  morning  sow  thy  seed,  and  in  the  evening  let 
not  thy  hfind  cease :  for  thou  knowest  not  which  may 
rather  spring  up,  this  or  that;  and  if  both  together,  it 
shall  be  the  better."* 

Thirdly,  this  devotion  would  be  of  great  help  in 
saving  many  souls.  We  ourselves  by  the  practice  of  it 
should  gain  such  favour  with  God  as  would  enable  us 
to  impetrate  graces  which  are  far  above  the  feebleness 
of  our  present  prayers.  Oh,  we  should  see  such  things 
happen !  Such  a  throwing  open  of  the  treasures  of 
God's  mercy,  such  inundations  of  grace,  such  obstinate 
hearts  overcome,  such  new  benedictions  poured  out 
over  the  whole  Church !  Then  again,  by  making  daily 
reparation  to  God  for  the  ingratitude  and  unmindful- 
ness  of  sinners,  we  should  appease  Ilis  anger  against 
them,  and  thus  avert  from  them  many  judgments  and 
chastisements,  both  spiritual  and  temporal.  It  is  asto- 
nishing in  how  many  indirect  ways  God  lovingly  alloM'S 
us  to  co-operate  in  the  salvation  of  souls.  I  wish  we 
were  more  ingenious  in  finding  them  out,  and  more 
unwearying  in  the  practice  of  them !  Poor  souls  !  we 
have  given  you  scandals  enough ;  would  we  could  at 
least  equal  them  now  by  prayers  and  by  thanksgivings ! 
It  does  not  seem  as  if  the  Precious  Blood  were  half  our 
own,  till  it  has  become  yours  also.     Oh,  may  I  never 

*  Eccles.  xi.  1,  6. 


298  THANKSGIVING. 


forget  that  there  may  be  souls  on  earth  whose  glory  God 
has  tied  to  my  zeal  and  prayer !  There  may  be  a  dear 
soul,  whom  God  has  loved  from  all  eternity,  and  decreed 
tc  call  it  out  of  nothing  in  preference  to  millions  of 
souls  He  might  have  created  instead  ;  a  dear  soul  whom 
Jesus  thought  of  by  name  upon  the  Cross,  and  offered 
for  it  with  distinct  oblation  all  His  sufferings ;  a  dear 
soul  for  whose  company  Mary  yearns  in  heaven ;  and 
whether  or  no  it  shall  see  God,  and  be  His  king  and 
priest  for  ever,  clothed  with  incomparable  beauty,  and 
crowned  with  inexpressible  gifts,  and  plunged  in  an 
everlasting  sea  of  joy,  has  been  hung  by  an  adorable 
venture  of  Divine  Love  upon  my  unconscious  prayer ! 
Ah  Lord !  when  saw  I  Thee  hungry  and  fed  Thee  not, 
thirsty,  and  gave  Thee  not  to  drink  ?  Oh  may  His 
answer  never  cease  to  sound  in  my  love-frightened  ear. 
Inasmuch  as  thou  hast  not  done  it  unto  the  least  o/ 
these  My  brethren,  thou  hast  not  d  )ne  it  unto  Me?  i 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Iniis^  HKir  §tsut 

EN  of  science  lead  us  into  every 
nook  and  corner  of  the  world  to 
show  us,  even  in  the  case  of  the 
vilest  insects  and  the  adaptation  of 
their  habits  and  instincts  to  their 
wants  and  weaknesses,  how  full 
creation  is  not  only  of  the  wisdom 
and  the  power,  but  of  the  minute 
considerateness  and  tender  com- 
passion of  the  Almighty.  We  have  seen 
precisely  the  same  thing  in  the  spiritual 
world,  and  its  supernatural  arrange- 
ments. All  is  for  love ;  and  that  to  an 
extent  which  almost  tries  our  faith.  God 
loves  us  with  a  surpassing  love,  and  lie 
'o  longs  to  be  loved  by  us,  and  He  lavishes 
upon  us  with  an  incredible  profusion  the 
®  most  unthought-of  means  of  loving  Him  and 
increasing  His  glory.  Theology  is  the  counterpart  of 
physical  science.  It  can  tell  us  quite  as  wonderful 
things  of  the  angels  whom  we  have  never  seen,  as 
astronomy  can  of  the  stars  we  can  never  reach. 
The  science  of  the  laws  of  grace  is  a  parallel  to  the 

299 


SOO  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


science  of  the  laws  of  life.  The  history  and  constitb 
tion  of  the  Church  is  as  startling  in  its  wonders  as  am 
the  records  of  geology.  With  the  help  of  revelation, 
the  Church,  reason,  and  the  light  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
Catholic  theologians  have  explored  spirit  with  at  least 
quite  as  much  certainty  and  success  as  modern  science 
has  explored  matter.  Those  who  smile  when  we  speak 
so  intimately  of  the  difierent  choirs  of  angels,  are  like 
'  those  who  smile  when  they  are  told  the  bulk  of  a  pla- 
net, or  that  it  is  made  of  some  material  as  light  as  cork. 
The  unbelief  of  ignorance  causes  the  smile  in  both. 
The  immense  intellect  of  man  was  once  directed  upon 
the  life  of  God,  His  perfections,  His  incarnation,  and 
His  communications  of  Himself.  Kevelation  gave  it 
countless  infallible  axioms,  and  that  greatest  glory  of 
the  human  mind.  Catholic  theology,  was  the  result. 
The  same  immense  power  is  now  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  currents  of  the  ocean  and  the  circles  of  the  winds, 
upon  electrical  phenomena,  and  the  chemistry  of  the 
stars,  and  the  result  is  wonderful  enough  in  the  system 
of  modern  science ;  yet  hardly  so  wonderful,  even  as  an 
exhibition  of  mental  power,  as  are  the  summas  of  scho- 
lastic theology. 

It  is  our  ignorance  of  our  religion  which  more  than 
any  thing  else  prevents  our  discerning  the  extreme  lov- 
ingness  of  God.  To  the  savage,  on  whose  inobservant 
mind  no  phenomena  are  forced  but  those  of  power,  such 
as  the  storm,  the  flash,  the  sun,  the  sea,  the  wind, — the 
Creator  is  simply  a  Spirit  of  might.  Could  he  see  the 
affections  and  instincts  of  animals,  as  science  would  put 
them  before  him,  then  he  would  come  to  change  his 
notion  of  tne  Creator.  So  when  men  are  absorbed  in 
worldly  pursuits,  and  do  not  occupy  themselves  in  the 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  301 


things  of  God,  it  is  only  the  phenomena  of  power  in 
religion,  such  as  death,  mortal  sin,  judgment,  hell,  pre- 
destination, which  engage  their  attention.  They  must 
descend  into  the  minute  laws  of  grace,  the  secrets  of 
prayer,  the  arrangements  of  merit  and  glory,  the  affec- 
tionateness  of  indulgences,  the  sweet  mysteries  of  Jesus 
and  Mary,  in  order  to  get  any  thing  like  a  true  idea  of 
the  length  and  breadth  of  God's  amazing  love.  The 
thunderclap  can  strike  the  inattentive ;  but  it  is  only 
the  listener  that  catches  the  sealike  whispers  of  the 
Bummer-air  in  the  pine-tree  tops. 

We  have  seen  how  God  enables  us  to  love  Ilim  by 
giving  us  all  His  own  perfections,  and  the  mysteries  of 
His  dear  Son,  to  offer  as  our  very  own  to  His  blessed 
Majesty,  and  further,  by  teaching  us  how  to  unite  our 
little  services  to  the  intentions  and  actions  of  our  Lord  ; 
and  how  all  these  things  can  be  used  alike  for  interces- 
sion, for  thanksgiving,  or  for  praise.  But  we  may  now 
go  a  step  farther,  and  say  that  in  His  anxiety  to  be 
loved,  and  to  give  us  the  means  of  loving  Him,  He 
raises  even  our  ineffectual  desires  to  the  dignity  of 
effectual  acts,  and  enables  us  to  worship  Him  with  a 
most  heavenly  and  delightful  worship,  with  the  passing 
wishes  of  our  loving  hearts.  He  does  not  call  only  for 
blood,  and  pain,  and  sacrifice.  He  does  not  refuse  to 
feed  His  glory  on  any  thing  short  of  heroic  self-immo- 
lation. The  faintest  heart  in  creation  may  love  Him, 
and  love  Him  with  an  abundant  love. 

We  can  all  perhaps  remember  when  we  were  young  the 
books  called  the  Tarry-at-Home  Traveller,  and  the  ob- 
jects they  put  before  us.  We  could  sit  at  ease  in  our 
sunny  nursery,  rocking  on  a  rocking-chair,  with  the 
Bcattered  toys  and  the  dilapidated  houses  of  wooden 


302  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


bricks  around  us, — tokens  of  a  play  which  had  inte- 
rested and  tired  us  an  hour  ago,  and  amid  all  these  com- 
forts we  could  cross  the  sandy  plains  of  Africa,  or 
thread  the  flowering  forests  of  Brazil,  amuse  ourselves 
with  the  mud  volcanoes  of  Iceland,  or  watch  the  Tar- 
tars from  off  the  Great  Wall  of  China ;  and  if  when 
night  came  on  we  did  look  into  our  little  beds  to  see  if 
a  cobra  di  capello  were  lurking  there,  or  we  were  may- 
hap shipwrecked  in  a  dream,  they  were  but  the  vainest 
of  alarms,  and  even  they  could  give  a  zest  to  the  mor- 
row. Now,  God's  love  has  realized  in  our  devotions 
something  very  like  this  Tarry-at-IIome  Travelling. 
We  can  go  from  country  to  country  on  the  earth,  wish- 
ing God  more  glory,  and  worshipping  Jesus  in  neg- 
lected tabernacles.  We  can  brood  over  the  dim  realms 
of  purgatory,  and  sigh  and  wish  for  God's  glory  and 
the  interests  of  Jesus.  We  can  range  the  courts  of 
heaven  with  undazzled  eye,  and  worship  there  by  in- 
ward wishes  and  by  mental  praises.  We  can  pass  from 
attribute  to  attribute  of  the  Divine  Majesty  with  con- 
gratulations, joys,  desires,  nay,  even  with  impossible 
wishes  it  were  more  perfect.  And  all  the  while  this  is 
no  mere  amusement,  no  merely  lawful  occupation  of 
our  minds  with  the  dear  and  deep  things  of  God.  But 
it  is  substantial  worship,  something  with  which  the  eter- 
nal Majesty  is  positively  pleased,  adoration  impetrating 
actual  graces,  and  securing  corresponding  degrees  of 
glory. 

In  truth  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  so  substantial 
as  all  these  things.  The  rocky  mountain  is  less  real 
than  true  worship.  Suffering  even  is  but  an  unreality 
compared  with  that  which  has  power  to  please  the  in- 
cor.iprehensiblo  God.     Grace  being  a  participation  of 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE;  303 


the  Divine  Nature,  is  a  thousand  times  more  solid  than 
all  the  natures  of  men  and  animals:  and  the  law  of 
gravity  is  less  certain  than  the  unimaginable  glory  of 
the  Blessed.  Truly  the  ways  of  God,  are  above  our 
ways,  and  we  soon  get  out  of  our  depth  in  His  loving 
counsels !  If  we,  with  the  little  dim  discernment  we 
can  have  of  spiritual  things,  can  touch  and  handle  the 
amazing  reality  of  every  thing  which  has  to  do  with 
God,  what  wonder  that  the  saints  should  have  spoken 
so  lightly  and  so  contemptuously  of  the  things  of  earth, 
as  if  pain  and  pleasure,  life  and  death,  were  so  indis- 
tinguishably  small,  that  it  mattered  not  whether  the 
one  or.  the  other  befell  a  man.  Verily  there  is  no 
science  like  the  science  of  loving  God. 

The  subject  then  that  I  want  to  bring  before  you  now 
is  that  of  Praise  and  Desire,  with  the  devout  practices 
of  them  left  on  record  for  us  by  holy  men.  Praise  is 
something  more  than  thanksgiving.  It  is  blessing  God 
for  His  goodness,  His  power,  His  purity.  His  beauty. 
It  is  congratulating  Him  that  He  is  what  He  is,  and 
that  there  is  none  like  Him.  It  is  calling  on  all  His 
angels  and  saints  to  praise  and  glorify  Him  with  all 
their  might :  and  rising  from  them  to  Mary,  we  implore 
her  to  praise  the  Majesty  of  God  for  us  more  worthily 
than  we  ourselves  can  do  ;  and  exhausting  all  the  trea- 
sures of  her  almost  divine  prerogatives,  we  rise  to  the 
Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  which  is  like  a  boundless  sea, 
every  one  of  whose  waves  gleams  and  lightens  with  un- 
utterable praise  of  God  ;  but  even  that  has  limits, 
though  the  dear  little  French  picture  of  the  angel  try- 
ing to  fathom  the  Sacred  Heart,  and  his  load  not  reach- 
ing half  way,  may  be  true  enough  so  far  as  the  power 
of  men  or  angels  to  fathom  it  is  conceivod ;  and  by  love. 


304  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


from  excess  of  love  becoming  unabashed,  we  dare  to 
throw  ourselves  into  the  bosom  of  the  Most  High,  and 
listen  ecstatically  to  His  many-voiced  praise  and  bene- 
diction of  Himself.  This  is  a  different  spirit  from  that 
which  measures  the  necessities  of  obedience,  investi- 
gates its  claim  on  God,  ascertains  the  extent  to  which 
He  has  bound  Himself  by  covenant,  and  follows  the  pro- 
bable opinion  which  is  in  favour  of  the  laxest  practice. 
I  am  not  saying  this  latter  spirit  is  wrong.  I  am  neither 
criticizing  nor  finding  fault  with  any  thing.  X  am  only 
saying,  what  is  clearly  undeniable,  that  it  is  a>ery  dif- 
ferent spirit  from  the  spirit  of  Praise.  Moreover,  the 
spirit  of  Praise  is  easier  and  sweeter.  It  brings  no  suf- 
fering along  with  it ;  it  involves  no  austerity  ;  it  implies 
no  arduous  heights  of  prayer.  There  is  not  in  devotion 
a  more  childlike  spirit  than  it  is.  But  it  is  not  only  a 
different  spirit ;  it  produces  a  different  character,  a  dif- 
ferent kind  of  spirituality.  It  entices  us  to  serve  God 
out  of  love.  Hence  it  finds  its  proper  place  in  this 
treatise,  which  would  not  be  complete  without  it. 

By  desire,  I  do  not  mean  what  theologians  call  the 
love  of  concupiscence,  by  which  we  all  covet  God  as  our 
own  ultimate  end  and  sovereign  good.  That  love  of 
concupiscence  does  not  enter  into  my  subject.  But  by 
Desire  I  mean  the  devotion  which  results  in  the  heart 
from  the  two  loves  of  Complacency  and  Benevolence, 
to  be  afterward  explained.  It  is  wishing  God  more 
love,  more  obedience,  more  glory  from  men.  It  is  de- 
siring for  Him,  out  of  love,  the  augmentation  of  every 
thing  in  heaven,  earth,  hell,  and  purgatory,  on  which 
His  accidental  glory  can  feed  and  be  increased.  It  is 
wishing  even  impossible  wishes,  as  that  He  were  more 
perfect  and  beautiful  than  He  is,  who  is  simnle  perfcc- 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  305 


tion  and  absolute  beauty.  It  is  wishing  we  could  bo 
martyred  for  the  faith,  or  clear  hell,  or  empty  purga- 
tory. It  is  wishing,  even  till  sorrow  and  condolence 
spring  up  in  our  hearts,  that  sins  might  cease,  and 
scandals  disappear,  and  lukewarmness  evaporate  from 
tlie  face  of  the  earth,  and  most  of  all,  tha,t  we  ourselves 
could  serve  so  drear  and  dread  a  Majesty  otherwise 
than  we  do.  and  could  have  other  hearts  than  those 
miserable  icy  stones  wnich,  so  far  as  God  is  concerned, 
we  carry  about  in  our  bosom  all  our  lives  long.  It  is 
wishing  that  every  grain  of  the  sea-sands,  and  every 
leaf  of  the  forests  had  a  seraph's  intellect  and  voice  to 
swell  the  chorus  of  God's  praise.  This,  again,  is  a  dif- 
ferent spirit  from  wishing  to  escape  hell-fire,  from  de- 
siring a  short  purgatory,  or  to  skip  it  altogether,  from 
praying  for  a  quiet  life  and  an  easy  death-bed,  from 
asking  temporal  blessings,  and  seeking  cures  from  the 
relics  of  the  saints,  from  coveting  after  the  peace,  and 
joy,  and  stability  of  heaven,  merely  or  mainly,  because 
of  the  irksomeness  of  earth's  contraries.  Once  more, 
let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  am  not  saying  that 
this  last  spirit  is  wrong.  Not  at  all.  I  wish  all  the 
children  of  men  were  infected  with  it.  But  it  is  cogni- 
zably a  different  spirit  from  the  spirit  of  Desire.  And 
the  spirit  of  Desire  is  easier  and  sweeter,  and  gives  God 
greater  glory.  Besides  this,  it  also,  like  the  spirit  of 
Praise,  produces  a  different  spirituality,  and  leads  to 
the  service  of  love. 

These  are  the  two  things,  Praise  and  Desire,  which 
we  are  now  to  consider.  Henceforth,  I  shall  not  speak 
of  them  separately  ;  for  they  run  in  and  out  of  each 
other  so  perpetually,  that  for  convenience  sake  we  may 
very  well  regard  them  as  one  thing.     You  see,  to  go 

U  26* 


o06  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


back  to  my  old  story — Avhat  I  want  of  you  is  confidence 
in  God.  There  is  no  worship  worth  the  name  of  wor- 
ship, which  is  not  the  voice  of  confidence.  There  is  no 
love  which  is  not  confidence.  But  there  can  be  no  con- 
fidence without  the  filial  feeling.  We  always  get  back 
again  to  the  same  point,  God  is  our  Father  !  Look  at 
the  perfections  of  God,  Ilis  power  as  well  as  His  love, 
His  justice  as  well  as  His  mercy.  Consider  one  as 
much  as  the  other ;  be  as  fixir  to  one  as  to  the  other. 
So  far  as  ir  our  blindness  we  can  at  all  estimate  tho 
character  ol  God,  or  appreciate  Ilim,  we  must  acknoAV- 
ledge  that  there  can  be  no  acceptable  worship  of  Ilim 
which  is  not  based  on  confidence.  This  is  the  proper 
homage  of  the  creature  to  its  Creator.  From  the 
dreadful  fear  which  worships  the  spirit  of  power  with 
human  sacrifice  and  fanatical  suicide,  to  the  mixed 
impertinence  and  superstition  of  fetishism,  the  absence 
of  this  filial  feeling  of  confidence  is  the  characteristic 
of  every  modification  of  false  worship.  The  beautiful 
worship  of  God  as  our  Father  is  distinguished  by  this 
very  thing,  that  its  chief  exercise  of  love  is  in  putting 
trust  in  the  very  perfections  of  God,  which,  to  an  un- 
loving mind,  would,  produce  fear.  It  is  a  great  act  of 
love  to  trust,  like  a  son,  God's  tremendous  power.  It 
is  a  greater  still  to  remember  what  we  are,  and  in  spite 
of  it  to  put  all  our  confidence  in  His  justice,  to  repose, 
as  in  a  mother's  lap,  upon  that  very  attribute  which 
haunts  the  unloving  like  an  unconquerable  spectre, 
so  long  as  they  believe  and  live.  All  for  love,  and  love 
for  us  all.  All  for  Jesus,  and  Jesus  for  all.  These 
are  the  two  sides  of  religion.  Every  thing  is  here,  all 
theology,  earth,  purgatory,  heaven.  Even  the  Jews 
perceived  how  every  thing  turned  on  men  remembering 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  oO' 


that  God  was  their  Father.  "  Nothing,"  says  one  of 
the  Rabbinical  books,  "  proves  ardour  in  the  wor- 
ehipper  more  than  the  use  of  the  words,  Our  Father." 
"Thrice  blessed  is  he,"  says  another,  "who  does  good 
through  love  of  God,  over  and  above  him  who  serves 
through  fear."  Such  were  even  the  traditions  of  tlie 
Jews.  And  now  Jesus  has  come,  softening  and  sub- 
duing all  things  to  Himself,  vailing  His  eternal  glory 
in  the  sweet  regards  of  human  eyes,  like  unto  His 
Mother's,  pleasing  not  Himself,  pouring  love  over  the 
whole  earth,  to  change  the  ftice  of  things  ;  and  yet— 
alas  for  the  interests  of  Divine  Love !  alas  for  the 
Sacred  Heart !  how  many  Catholics  contrive  to  make 
of  this  blessed  faith  and  service,  a  dry,  cold,  formal, 
stingy,  ungraceful  worship,  which  the  very  prostra- 
tions and  ablutions  of  a  Mohammedan  might  upbrai* 
and  put  to  shame ! 

I  have  said  before,  that  perhaps  nothing  strikes  con 
verts  in  the  devotional  system  of  the  Church  so  mucV 
as  the  value  and  importance  assigned  to  interior  act?. 
They  are  surprised  at  the  duty  under  pain  of  sin  cw 
acts  of  faith,  hope,  charity,  and  contrition,  at  recur- 
ring periods  or  under  given  circumstances.  They  ar^ 
startled  at  the  commentaries  on  oar  Lord's  doctrin'* 
about  committing  sin  in  our  hearts.  They  have  t" 
reconcile  themselves  to  the  influence  attributed  to  ip 
tentiou.  Now  all  this,  just  like  the  rest  of  the  Catlio 
lie  system,  brings  out  God.  God  is  a  simple  act 
Whatsoever  is  done  stands  in  a  certain  relation  to  God. 
All  its  meaning  and  reality  is  from  this.  AVords, 
therefore,  are  but  accidents.  Nay,  overt  acts  add  but 
little,  comparatively,  to  the  malice  of  the  interior  will. 
The  thought  has  been  assented  to :  the  intention  haa 


308  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


been  formed  ;  the  temptation  has  been  deliberately  ad- 
mitted. The  thing  is  irrevocal)le.  It  has  touched 
God,  and  is  stereotyped.  He  needs  no  index  of  the 
voice,  nor  consummation  of  the  hands.  It  is  an  act, 
and  ranks  as  such  with  Ilim,  for  good  or  evil,  for 
reward  or  punishment.  Sins  of  thought,  says  the 
Council  of  Trent,  have  these  frightful  characteristics ; 
first,  that  they  sometimes  make  a  greater  wound  in 
the  soul  than  sins  of  deed,  and  secondly,  that  they  are 
sometimes  more  dangerous.  Nonnunquam  animam 
gravius  sauciunt,  et  periculosiora  sunt  lis  quoe  mani- 
feste  admittuntur.  They  are  also  more  numerous, 
more  easily  committed,  and  their  approaches  frighten 
us  less.  Now  the  reality  of  the  merit  of  devout  de- 
sires, of  mental  praise,  and  of  all  interior  as  well  as 
spoken  acts  of  devotion  is  the  loving  side  of  this  ques- 
tion. They  need  be  nothing  more  than  interior  acts. 
Nothing  more  is  necessary.  They  have  touched  God 
as  such,  and  so  have  received  their  value  and  their 
merit.  Thus,  turning  the  tables  on  sins  of  thought, 
we  may  say  that  these  interior  acts  of  piety  sometimes 
make  a  greater  impression  on  the  soul  than  exterior 
ones  ;  while  they  have  the  further  advantages  of  being 
more  numerous  and  more  easily  performed.  But  is  it 
not  enough  to  vex  our  love,  to  go  and  stand  by  the 
countless  seas  of  men's  hearts,  and  to  watch  the  innu- 
merable waves  that  stir  and  brighten  in  every  one  of 
them  every  minute,  and  to  think  there  is  not  one  wave 
or  ripple  that  might  not  rival  an  angel's  song  for 
worth  before  the  dear  Majesty  of  God ;  and  yet,  that 
this  treasure  is  so  little  used,  that  men  take  so  little 
pains  about  it,  and  that  God  is  so  defrauded  of  His 
priory  ?     So  He  loves  us,  and  so  He  longs  for  our  love^ 


PRAISE   AND    DESIRE.  S09 

that  Ho  has  made  it  almost  as  easy,  by  the  merits  of 
Jesus,  for  our  hearts  to  praise  Ilim,  as  for  the  thurible 
to  let  the  spires  of  sweet  smoke  issue  through  its  per 
forated  cover ;  and  yet  we  will  not  do  it ! 

It  is  hard  to  appreciate  at  their  true  value  these  in- 
terior acts.  There  was  a  nun  in  the  convent  of  St. 
Mary  Magdelene  of  Pazzi,  by  name  Sister  Maria  Bene- 
detta  Vettori,  whom  the  saint  saw  five  hours  after  her 
death  in  a  glory  exceeding  the  beatitude  of  many  other 
virgins  of  the  monastery,  and  fearlessly  gazing  on  the 
Humanity  and  Divinity  of  the  Word.  The  Jesuit  con- 
fessor then  proceeds,  "  Wherefore,  after  having  been  a 
long  time  in  admiring  rapture,  through  joy  at  such  a 
delightful  sight,  the  saint  began  to  exclaim  at  inter- 
vals. Oh  happy  thou,  who  knewest  how  to  bear  the 
hidden  treasure !  Oh  what  a  great  thing  to  be  singu- 
lar among  tlie  singular,  and  yet  regarded  as  an  ordi- 
nary one !  The  Word,  had  He  merely  regarded  the 
works,  would  have  had  little  to  reward,  for  short  has 
been  the  time  for  working.  But  oh,  the  goodness  of 
God  !  who  rewards  every  thought,  and  word,  and 
wish !  Great  and  continual  were  thy  works,  and 
practised  by  few,  for  they  were  interior !  Oh  the 
greatness  of  interior  works,  so  little  understood  !  One 
interior  work  is  worth  a  thousand  years  of  exterior 
exercises!"     Oral.  Life, p.  1\^. 

Remember,  then,  this  is  what  we  start  with.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  world  so  real  and  substantial  as  the 
love  of  God.  One  act  of  Divine  Love  is  a  more 
finished  thing  than  a  statue  of  Phidias  or  Praxiteles. 
It  is  more  firm  than  the  foundations  of  the  Alps.  It  is 
more  enduring  than  the  round  world  which  God  hath 
made  so  strong.     All  things  are  bubbles  to  it.     They 


310  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


have  nothing  in  them.  They  mean  little.  They  soon 
pass  away.  An  act  of  love  is  a  complete  work,  and 
has  greater  power  and  greater  consequences  than  any 
other  act  The  mere  act  of  dying  is  not  equal  to  it. 
And  yet  this  act  of  love  can  be  made  by  a  mental 
glance,  quick  as  lightning,  and  piercing  heaven.  Such 
acts  can  be  multiplied  at  will  beyond  our  power  of 
reckoning,  and  in  the  midst  of  apparently  the  most 
distracting  occupations.  So  far  from  being  weakened 
by  repetition,  they  only  grow  more  intense  and  more 
powerful.  Yet  they  require  no  effort.  To  elicit  them 
is  even  a  pleasure  to  us.  But  when  we  put  these  facts 
alongside  of  our  practice,  it  looks  as  if  there  must  be 
a  fallacy  somewhere.  All  this  can  hardly  be  true,  and 
yet  we  remain  as  w-e  are.  How  incredible  is  the  hard- 
ness of  our  own  hearts !  It  is  a  fair  match  for  the 
excess  of  God's  love.  Oh  welcome  then  that  beautiful 
spirit  of  reparation  to  the  Majesty  of  God  which  so 
many  of  the  saints  have  had !  It  is  like  making  sweet 
honey  out  of  bitter  flowers.  The  little  love  we  have 
for  God  thus,  by  this  dear  right  of  reparation,  furnishes 
us  with  another  means  of  loving  Ilim  still  more.  Who 
will  say  that  all  things  are  not  contrived  for  love  ? 

In  order  to  get  a  clear  idea  of  Praise  and  Desire,  it 
will  be  necessary  for  us  to  enter  somewhat  into  the 
question  of  Divine  Love,  its  different  kinds  and  mani- 
festations. This,  however,  will  be  so  far  from  leading 
us  away  from  our  subject,  that  it  will  throw  great  light 
upon  many  of  the  preceding  chapters.  Indeed,  if  All 
for  Jesus  be  the  same  thing  as  All  for  love,  then  Divine 
Love  is  the  very  subject  of  the  treatise.  What  is  called 
by  theologians  the  love  of  concupiscence  is,  I  have  said 
before,  a  holy  longing  after  God  as  our  last  end,  our 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE,  311 


sovereign  good,  our  exceeding  great  reward  :  as  when 
St.  Paul  exclaimed,  I  desire  to  be  dissolved,  and  to  be 
vrith  Christ.  This  love  we  ought  to  have  all  our  lives 
long,  though  God  may  not  always  give  us  the  gift  to 
feel  it  sensibly.  There  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  the 
revelations  of  St.  Gertrude,  which  shows  how  accepta- 
ble to  God  is  this  longing  to  see  Ilim,  while  it  illustrates 
also  the  drawing  which  devout  people  mostly  have  to 
gaze  intensely  on  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  She  was 
divinely  instructed  that  as  often  as  a  man  gazes  with 
desire  and  devotion  on  the  Host,  where  the  Body  of 
Christ  lies  hid  sacramentally,  so  often  does  he  increase 
his  merit  in  heaven  ;  and  that  in  the  future  Vision  of 
God  to  all  eternity  there  shall  be  to  him  so  many  spe- 
cial and  congruous  joys  as  the  times  that  on  earth  he 
gazed  with  desire  and  devotion  on  the  Body  of  our 
Lord,  or,  which  is  greatly  to  our  present  purpose,  when 
he  so  much  as  desired  to  do  so,  and  was  reasonably 
hindered  from  doing  it.*  Hence  Lancisiusf  gives  it 
as  one  of  his  special  devotions  for  the  octave  of  Corpus 
Christi  to  try  to  hear  mass  where  you  can  see  the  Host 
lying  on  the  corporal,  or,  if  this  be  impossible,  to  look 
intently  at  It  in  the  monstrance.  So  necessary  in 
Christian  things  is  familiarity  in  order  to  reverence  ! 
And  observe  well,  that  God  is  pleased  to  attach  the 
same  promise  to  the  desire  to  see  Him  as  to  the  actually 
doing  so  ;  so  that  the  remarkable  words  of  St.  Law- 
rence Justinian t  were  no  devotional  exaggeration, 
when  he  said,  "  Let  us  persist  in  our  prayers  that  better 
gifts  may  be  daily  given  to  us.  For  it  very  often  hap- 
pens that  what  merits  cannot  do,  the  intercession  of  de  ■ 

•  L.  iv.  c.  25.  t  ii.  9 1.  t  De  Exalt.  CrucJs. 


312  PRAISE    AND   DESIRE. 


sJ«'es  effects.  Truly  God  rejoices  so  much  in  tlic  prayers 
of  supplicants,  that  He  grants  their  wishes  if  only  they 
come  from  a  simple  heart,  an  humble  mind,  and  a  faith- 
ful devotion.  Only  let  these  three  conditions  be  united 
in  a  prayer,  and  whatever  a  man  shall  ask,  according 
to  God,  he  shall  receive  from  the  Father  of  lights  and 
His  Son  Jesus  Christ." 

"What  is  unknown,"  says  St.  Austin,  "cannot  bo 
loved ;  *  non  enim  diligitur  nisi  cognitum,'  for,  except 
as  known  it  is  not  loved ;"  and  St.  Thomas  expands  this 
axiom  very  beautifully  in  the  Secunda  Secundae.  It  is 
this  knowledge  of  God  which  leads  us  to  those  further 
kinds  of  love  which  we  need  to  illustrate  our  subject 
of  Praise  and  Desire ;  so  I  must  try  to  do  what  seems 
very  foolish — describe  God. 

God  is  simple,  without  body  or  distinction  of  parts. 
He  is  simple,  because  He  has  nothing  borrowed.  He  is 
good  without  qualities,  great  without  quantity.  Creator, 
yet  needing  nothing,  everywhere,  yet  without  place, 
eternal,  without  term,  and  changing  all  things,  without 
change  Himself.  He  is  good  with  an  infinite  goodness, 
and  good  to  all,  but  specially  good  to  men.  He  is  in- 
finite in  the  multitude  of  His  perfections,  in  their  in- 
tensity, and  in  their  magnificence.  He  is  present 
everywhere,  in  different  manners,  yet  nowhere  con- 
tracting soil  or  stain.  He  is  immutable ;  His  eternity 
defends  Him  from  time.  His  immensity  from  change 
of  place,  and  His  wisdom  from  change  of  purpose.  Ho 
is  eternal  without  beginning  as  well  as  without  end, 
and  eternal  with  a  life  which  exists  all  at  once  and 
altogether,  and  with  a  perfect  possession  of  it.  He  sub- 
sists by  the  incomparable  unity  of  His  blessed  nature, 
and  it  is  the  crowning  interest  of  every  man  in  the 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  813 


world  that  God  should  be  but  One.  He  is  sovereign 
purity,  unspeakable  sanctity,  and  most  resplendent 
beauty.  He  is  always  in  adorable  tranquillity ;  no 
trouble  can  come  nigh  Ilis  Being.  He  is  known  to 
nature,  to  faith,  to  glory,  yet  He  is  incomprehensible 
by  all.  His  name  is  the  ineffable  God.  His  science  is 
beyond  our  thought,  and  is  the  source  of  His  ravishing 
joy.  His  being  is  truth  itself,  and  His  life  is  the  in- 
exhaustible fountain  of  life.  His  will  is  worshipful,  un- 
blamable, supreme,  and  His  liberty  is  without  parallel 
and  beyond  words.  His  love  of  His  creatures  is  eter 
nal,  constant,  gratuitous,  and  singular ;  and  His  mercy 
is  an  unfathomable  abyss  of  the  most  beautiful  com- 
passions and  condescensions,  and  no  less  also  of  the 
most  delicate  judgments  and  the  most  tender  retribu- 
tions. His  justice  is  as  irreproachable  as  His  sanctity, 
and  as  benevolent  as  His  mercy.  His  power  is  illimit- 
able, and  full  of  love  ;  and  His  blessedness  is  inacces- 
sible. Yet  all  these  are  not  separate  perfections;  but 
He  is  Himself  all  these  excellencies,  and  He  is  one : 
Three  co-equal,  co-eternal,  and  consubstantial  Persons, 
One  only  God.  Such,  in  the  dry  language  of  the 
schools,  is  the  description  of  Him  who  is  our  loving 
and  indulgent  Father,  God  over  all  blessed  for  ever- 
more !     Amen. 

Can  we  read  it,  and  not  see  that  no  half-allegiance 
will  do  for  Him?  He  cannot  reign  over  a  divided 
heart,  for  who  is  he  that  can  share  the  throne  with 
Him  ?  What  but  love  can  be  our  religion  ?  for  with 
what  else  can  we  worship  Him  ?  When  we  have  dared 
to  trust  Him,  then  we  have  worshipped  Him.  And  are 
not  these  attributes  like  the  circles  of  the  whirlpool, 
drawing  us  into  themselves  with  the  strong  fascination 


314  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


of  His  beauty  ?  AVhat  can  we  do  more  than  cry  out 
"with  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  "  0  goodness  so  infinite,  C 
infinity  so  good  I"  Yet  it  is  only  in  proportion  as  these 
dry  definitions  breathe  and  burn  with  the  heat  and 
light  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  they  touch  our  hearts 
with  genuine  love  of  God.  But  when  they  are  so 
touched,  as  yours  have  long  since  been,  then  they  lead 
us  not  only  to  long  for  God  as  our  own  Sovereign  Good, 
but  to  long  for  something  more.  But  let  us  first  seo 
what  comes  of  this  sweet-flavoured  knowledge  of  God, 
where  the  will  tastes  what  the  mind  perceives. 

Now,  if  God  cannot  be  loved  unless  He  is  first  known, 
and  if  also  He  has  arranged  all  creatures  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  communicating  Himself  to  them  and 
being  loved  by  them,  then  it  must  follow  that  it  is  for 
the  glory  of  God  that  His  perfections  should  be  known, 
and  His  goodness  acknowledged.  As  our  Lord  said 
that  when  He  was  lifted  up  He  should  draw  all  men 
unto  Him,  so  when  the  Divine  Majesty  is  raised  up 
before  the  eyes  of  men,  the  hearts  of  multitudes  will  bo 
drawn  toward  it  in  adoration  and  trembling  love. 
Hence,  as  the  glory  of  God  is  one  of  the  three  objects 
we  are  putting  before  ourselves  at  present,  we  see  how 
much  we  can  promote  it,  no  matter  what  our  rank  and 
condition  may  be,  by  making  God  better  known  by 
those  who  come  in  our  way. 

It  is  remarkable  how  few  persons  meditate  on  the 
attributes  of  God.  They  seem  to  imagine  that  little 
can  be  known,  said,  or  thought  about  them ;  or  at  best 
that  they  are  a  subject  for  lofty  contemplation  rather 
than  the  humble  meditation  of  beginners.  If  the  mys- 
teries of  Jesus,  the  actions  of  the  Sacred  Humanity, 
were  to  be  neglected  for  the,  divine  attributes,  there 


PRAISE  AND   DESIRE.  315 


can  be  no  question  it  would  be  a  delusion,  and  as  St. 
Theresa  teaches  us,  a  very  dangerous  delusion.  But  it 
really  seems  almost  necessary  to  fruitful  meditation  on 
the  Sacred  Humanity  of  our  dear  Lord,  that  meditation 
of  the  attributes  of  God  should  go  along  with  it ;  and 
it  is  observable  that  when  Blessed  Paul  of  the  Crosa 
founded  his  Passioiiist  nuns,  their  two  objects  of  prayer 
were  to  be  the  Passion,  and  the  attributes  of  God.  It 
is  sadly  true,  however,  that  with  all  classes  of  men,  the 
perfections  of  God  are  infrequent  subjects  of  thought. 
People  will  often  start  at  being  told  things  about  God, 
as  they  would  at  some  vision  about  the  unrevealed 
actions  of  our  Blessed  Lord  and  our  dear  Lady,  or  at 
some  tremendous  announcement  of  modern  science 
which  upsets  half  our  previous  knowledge,  and  for  the 
time  throws  it  all  into  confusion.  Surely  this  is  the 
reason  why  God  is  so  little  loved,  and  why  we  are  all 
so  dry  and  unamiable  in  our  way  of  serving  Ilim,  and 
especially  why  there  is  such  an  universal  complaint 
that  of  all  devotional  practices,  that  of  the  presence  of 
God  is  the  hardest  and  most  tedious.  Now  we  are  all 
of  us  having  continual  opportunities  of  saying  a  word 
for  God,  of  making  others  recognise  His  wisdom,  or 
acknowledge  His  goodness,  of  taking  His  side,  and  of 
contrasting  what  He  would  like  with  what  men  at 
large  are  actually  doing.  We  see  pious  and  worthy 
people  with  their  instincts  in  the  wrong  direction  ;  we 
are  pained  by  the  inconsistencies  of  those  whose  fer- 
vent self-denial  we  joyfully  admire ;  and  it  is  all  be- 
cause God  is  not  known,  and  His  true  glory  not 
discerned. 

But  even  if  opportunities  of  thus  glorifying  God  by 
ieaching  Him  to  others  were  wanting  to  us,  we  can 


316  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


always  glorify  Him  by  learning  Ilim  ourselves,  by 
reading  about  Him  and  meditating  upon  Him,  and  by 
perpetually  offering  to  His  Majesty  reverential  and 
affectionate  acts  of  Praise  and  Desire.  We  are  depend- 
ent on  nobody  for  this.  We  do  not  so  much  as  need  to 
speak.  Yet  we  continue  to  glorify  Him  while  we  make 
acts  of  loving  admiration  of  Him,  or  congratulate  Him 
that  His  perfections  are  unspeakable,  or  offer  to  Him 
with  humble  reparation  the  praise  due  to  Him  from  all 
those  creatures  that  are  this  hour  forgetting  Him.  Oh, 
how  much  could  we  do  by  patient  love,  by  thoughtful 
love,  by  assiduous  love  ! 

Neither  is  it  less  for  the  interests  of  Jesus  that  the 
knowledge  of  God  should  be  spread  upon  the  earth. 
He  came  to  save  sinners,  not  only  by  dying  for  them, 
but  by  making  His  Father  known  to  them.  This  is 
eternal  life,  that  we  should  know  God  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  He  hath  sent.  Our  Lord  is  Himself  the  bright- 
ness of  His  Father's  glory  and  the  figure  of  His  sub- 
stance. As  the  Second  Person  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
He  is  the  Eternal  Word,  the  Father's  knowledge  of 
Himself,  whom  He  hath  appointed  heir  of  all  things, 
and  by  whom  also  He  made  the  world.  Thus  to  pub- 
lish the  perfections  of  God  to  others,  or  to  acknowledge 
them  ourselves,  is  of  all  works  the  most  acceptable  to 
our  dearest  Lord,  for  it  is  the  likeness  of  His  own 
work,  nay,  rather  it  is  His  own  work  with  which  He 
allows  us  to  co-operate.  It  is  His  own  grandeur,  they 
are  His  own  perfections,  which  we  are  thus  publishing 
and  acknowledging.  There  is  no  fitter  devotion  to  the 
Person  of  the  Eternal  Word  than  to  laud  and  magnify 
the  splendours  of  the  Most  Holy  Trinity. 

The  salvation  of  souls  is  equally  concerned  in  the 


PRAISE   AND    DESIRE.  317 

matter.  What  has  been  the  experience  of  converts  to 
the  Catholic  Church  ?  It  is  not  so  much  knowledge 
and  love  of  Mary  which  they  have  acquired,  as  those 
they  have  left  behind  so  often  fancy.  It  is  not  so 
much  the  efficacy  of  grace,  and  the  reality  of  the  Sa- 
craments which  they  have  come  to  learn  by  their  new 
religion :  though  what  they  have  learned  of  these  things, 
and  especially  of  the  doctrine  of  grace,  is  indeed  most 
wonderful.  But  the  great,  the  pre-eminent  change  in 
them  Bince  they  became  Catholics,  has  been  their  know- 
ledge of  God.  The  thought  of  God  has  been  growing 
and  expanding  in  them  ever  since,  until  their  whole 
minds  have  become  overshadowed  with  it.  The  chief 
fruit  of  an  intense  and  enthusiastic  devotion  to  our 
dear  Lady  has  been  to  teach  them  more  and  more  of 
God,  and  to  magnify  Him  in  their  souls.  When  they 
look  back  on  the  old  days  of  error,  it  does  not  look  so 
much  as  if  their  ignorance  had  consisted  in  a  disesteem 
of  Mary  or  of  the  Blessed  Eucharist,  of  penance  or 
of  purgatory,  as  in  having  a  low  idea  of  God ;  so  that 
on  the  retrospect  a  man  is  led  involuntarily  to  exclaim, 
"Why,  I  did  not  believe  in  God  V  and  the  cry  is  hardly 
an  exaggeration.  Then  first  they  know  what  a  solid 
thing  religion  is.  And  oh !  how  sweet  has  the  know- 
ledge of  God  been,  as  well  as  a  solid  gain  !  It  has  put 
another  face  on  life,  on  trial,  pain,  vicissitude,  and  suf- 
fering. It  has  been  within  them  a  fountain  of  refresh- 
ment springing  up  continually,  or,  as  the  prophet  says, 
*•  The  shadow  of  a  great  rock  in  a  barren  land."  And 
it  is  not  only  sweetness  which  has  been  in  it,  but  power 
also,  power  to  do  and  power  to  endure.  Yes !  men 
little  know  how  great  and  good  a  work  it  is  they  are 
doing,  when  they  increase  by  ever  so  little  another's 

27* 


318  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


knowledoje  of  the  Most  High,  They  have  not  stopped 
one  sin,  but  hundreds.  They  have  not  been  the  chan- 
nels of  one  grace,  but  of  thousands.  They  have  not 
taught  one  devotion,  but  all,  all  devotions  in  that  onft 
which  comes  of  knowing  one  thing  more  of  God  than 
we  knew  before.  The  knowledge  of  God  is  the  esta- 
blishment of  Christ's  kingdom  in  the  soul.  How  many 
more  would  be  converted  if  they  would  only  read  and 
meditate  on  God !  How  many  would  advance  in  the 
spiritual  life  who  now  stand  still,  because  the  Divine 
Perfections  are  not  preached  to  them,  or  do  not  make 
part  of  their  spiritual  reading !  How  many  more 
Catholics  would  serve  God  out  of  pure  love  if  they 
would  make  His  character  and  attributes  their  study ! 
I  believe  the  bare  perusal  of  the  treatise  De  Deo,  even 
with  the  dry  harshness  of  its  technical  language,  would 
do  more  to  convert  souls  than  any  half-dozen  of  the 
most  fervid  and  aflfecting  spiritual  books  that  ever  were 
written.  All  glory  be  to  God  at  least  for  those  who 
have  been  led  out  of  heresy  into  the  bosom  of  the  true 
Church,  and  have  thus  felt  all  that  the  growing  know- 
ledge of  God  has  done  for  them,  especially  through 
devotion  to  His  ever  blessed  Mother!  For  of  their 
souls  may  it  be  most  truly  said,*  "  that  the  land  that 
was  desolate  and  impassable  hath  been  glad  ;  and  the 
wilderness  hath  rejoiced  and  flourished  like  the  lily. 
It  hath  budded  forth  and  blossomed,  and  rejoiced  with 
joy  and  praise.  The  glory  of  Libanus  hath  been  given 
to  it,  the  beauty  of  Carmel  and  Saron ;  they  have  seen 
the  glory  of  the  Lord,  and  the  beauty  of  our  God. 
And  so  the  feeble  hands  have  been  strengthened,  and 

*  Isa.  XXXV. 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  319 


the  weak  knees  confirmed  ;  and  it  has  been  said  to  the 
faint-hearted,  Take  courage,  and  fear  not ;  and  the 
eyes  of  the  blind  have  been  opened,  and  the  ears  of 
the  deaf  been  unstopped.  The  lame  man  has  leaped 
as  a  hart,  and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb  been  set  free ; 
for  waters  are  broken  out  in  the  desert  and  streams  in 
the  wilderness.  That  which  was  dry  land  has  become 
a  pool,  and  the  thirsty  land  springs  of  water.  In  the 
dens  where  dragons  dwelt  before,  now  rises  up  the  ver- 
dure of  the  reed  and  the  bulrush.  A  path  and  a  way 
are  there,  and  are  called  the  Holy  Way  ;  and  no  lion 
can  be  there,  nor  any  mischievous  beast  go  up  by  it,  or 
be  found  there  ;  but  they  walk  there  that  are  delivered  ; 
and  the  redeemed  of  the  Lord  have  returned,  and  have 
come  into  Sion  with  praise,  and  everlasting  joy  is  upon 
their  heads;  for  they  have  obtained  joy  and  gladness, 
and  sorrow  and  mourning  have  fled  away.'^ 

Let  us  now  see  what  comes  of  this  knowledge  of  God, 
which  we  receive  by  faith.  We  perceive  Ilim  to  be 
the  unspeakable  fulness  of  all  possible  and  incompre- 
hensible perfections.  As  He  is  then  an  object  im- 
mensely beautiful,  He  must  therefore  be  immensely 
desirable,  and  is  discerned  as  such  by  the  under- 
standing using  the  light  of  faith.  Now,  whenever 
the  understanding  beholds  any  thing  which  is  desirable, 
there  is  an  immediate  feeling  in  the  will,  which  is  not 
a  free  act,  but  the  necessary  result  of  the  law  of  our 
nature.  This  feeling  is  called  complacency.  But 
although  this  is  not  itself  a  free  act,  it  at  once  begins 
to  act  unless  the  reason  forbids  it.  It  begins  at  once 
to  exercise  itself  freely  in  expressions  or  sentiments  of 
joy,  pleasure,  praise,  and  desire.  It  is  thus  we  come 
to  this  second  kind  of  Divine  Love,  the  love  of  compla» 


320  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


cency,  rejoicing  in  God  because  he  is  so  good,  because 
He  is  Himself,  because  He  is  God.  We  congratulate 
Ilim  on  all  this.  Nay  more,  we  wish  an  impossibility 
which  goes  beyond  complacency,  that  He  could  be  more 
good  and  more  perfect ;  and  this  wish  is  a  real  mode 
of  manifesting  our  love  to  Ilim.  We  desire  also  that 
as  we  can  do  nothing  to  increase  Ilis  glory  in  Himself, 
we  should  at  least  increase  His  accidental  glory, 
which  comes  from  the  obedience  and  love  of  His  crea- 
tures, whom  He  has  created  for  this  end.  This  com- 
placency comes,  I  say,  from  the  very  knowledge  of 
God  which  faith  imparts  to  us ;  and  it  is  continually 
growing  in  us,  unless  sin  and  lukewarmness  hinder 
and  kill  it.  The  case  between  God  and  the  soul  ihen 
stands  thus,  if  we  may  venture  to  use  Scripture  lan- 
guage for  these  mutual  acts  of  love.  The  soul,  looking 
in  delighted  wonder  over  all  this  sea  of  beautiful  attri- 
butes and  perfections,  seems  to  hear  a  Voice  rising  up 
from  the  surface  of  the  many  waters,  and  borne  to  its 
inmost  ear,  "I  have  loved  thee  with  an  everlasting 
love  ;  therefore  have  I  drawn  thee,  taking  pity  on  thee; 
and  I  will  build  thee  again,  and  thou  shall  be  built,  0 
virgin  of  Israel."*  And  the  soul  murmurs,  half  in 
thought,  half  in  reply,  "Know  ye  that  the  Lord,  He  is 
God.  I  have  said  to  the  Lord,  Thou  art  my  God — Thou 
art  thfc  God  of  my  heart,  and  the  God  that  in  my  por- 
tion for  ever."t  The  Voice  of  the  many  waters  comes 
again,  "If  any  man  shall  hear  my  voice,  and  open  to 
Me  the  gate,  I  will  come  into  him,  and  sup  with  him. 
and  he  with  Me."J  And  the  soul,  charmed  out  of 
herself,  replies,  "Let  my  Beloved  come  into  His  garden, 

•  Jer.  xxxj.  3,  4.  f  Vs.  xcix.  xv.  Ixxii.  %  Apoc.  iii.  20. 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  321 


and  eat  the  fruit  of  His  apple-trees."*  Then,  as  if 
turning  to  angels  and  men,  the  Voice  exclaims, 
"Behold,  the  smell  of  My  son  is  as  the  smell  of  a 
plentiful  field,  which  the  Lord  hath  blessed;"!  and 
ihe  soul  hears,  yet  knows  that  nothing  of  its  own  ia 
good,  and  so  it  too  turns  to  angels  and  men,  and  says, 
''  See  how  it  is,  the  King  brought  me  into  His  store- 
rooms, and  His  breasts  are  more  than  wine.  God 
forbid  that  I  should  glory  but  .in  the  Cross  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  I  live,  now  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in 
me.  A  cluster  of  cypress  my  love  is  to  me,  in  the 
vineyards  of  Engaddi.^J 

How  delightful  is  this  complacency  in  God  !  There 
need  be  no  bounds  to  it ;  it  may  be,  if  it  could  be,  wide 
as  God  Himself.  There  can  be  no  talk  here  of  limit 
or  of  moderation.  Moderation  is  baseness,  fraud,  and 
infidelity,  where  God  is  concerned.  All  God  is  before 
us,  infinitely  perfect,  infinitely  desirable,  for  us  to  re- 
joice in.  What  is  earth?  What  are  the  things  of  earth? 
Shall  we  not  be  lifted  up  far  above  ourselves,  our  own 
petty  wretchedness  and  misery,  our  own  grovelling 
interests  and  low-born  desires?  God  grows  like  a 
dawning  splendour  before  us.  We  become  like  that 
good  man  mentioned  in  St.  Philip's  life  who  was  seen 
retreating  from  the  altar,  step  by  step,  with  wonder 
and  rapture  depicted  on  his  face,  and  who  said  that 
he  was  meditating  on  the  Greatness  of  God,  and  it 
was  growing  upon  him  like  something  in  pursuit,  and 
thrusting  him  backward.  The  more  we  know  of  God, 
the  more  our  complacency  increases ;  because,  to  fill 

*  Cant.  V.  1.  t  Oen.  xxvii.  27. 

-lCant.i.3.    Gal.vi.l4.    Gal.ii.20.    Cant.  L 13. 

w 


322  PRAISE  AND   DESIRE. 


our  minds  and  engross  us,  the  simple  tnought  of  God 
must  be  multiplied  and  repeated  from  a  thousand 
objects.  It  is  like  the  sun  lighting  up  a  mountain 
chain.  He  is  not  multiplied  himself,  but  as  his  golden 
magnificence  lights  up  peak  after  peak,  we  become 
more  and  more  surrounded  by  his  effulgence.  It  is 
thus  with  God :  each  attribute  to  which  we  give  a 
name,  though  His  attributes  are  in  truth  His  Simple 
Self,  is  to  us  as  a  separate  height  crowned  and  glowing 
with  His  glory,  and  so  reflecting  Ilim  upon  our  souls ; 
while  the  multitude  of  nameless  perfections,  for  which 
we  have  neither  ideas,  words,  nor  standards,  are  to  us 
like  the  consciousness  of  the  glorious  sea  of  mountain 
tops  which  are  beyond  our  ken,  but  which  we  know  to 
be  resting  in  that  furnace  of  golden  light,  and  adding 
to  the  burning  splendour  which  is  circumfused  over 
earth,  and  sea,  and  sky. 

Who  can  think  of  self,  when  he  is  thus  with  God  ? 
And  who  can  have  hard  thoughts  of  His  absolute  em- 
pire and  uncontrolled  sovereignty,  when  he  is  lost, 
sweetly  lost  in  this  complacency,  joying  over  God  that 
He  is  God,  that  He  is  just  what  He  is,  and  that  nothing 
is  wanting  to  Him  ?  He  is  the  Lord ;  let  Him  do  what 
seemeth  Him  good.  What  Eli  said  in  sorrow,  we  may 
surely  say  still  more  in  joy.  Ah!  dear  Jesus!  how  is 
it  we  do  not  cultivate  this  blessed  complacency?  It  is 
80  full  of  gladness  and  of  peace,  and  of  self-forgetting, 
childlike  love !  Oh  teach  us  to  be  ever  looking  over  tho 
sea  of  thine  interminable  magnificence,  and  rejoicing 
that  Thou  art  what  Thou  art,  that  Thou  hast  been  thus 
from  unbeginning  eternity,  and  shall  be  thus,  adorably 
immutable,  for  never-ending  ages  !     "The  soul,"  sayi 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  323 


St.  Francis  of  Sales,*  **  that  exercises  the  love  of  com- 
placency, cries  perpetually  in  her  sacred  silence,  It  is 
enough  for  me  that  God  is  God,  that  His  goodness  is 
infinite,  that  His  perfection  is  immense.  Whether  I 
die  or  live,  matters  little  to  me,  for  my  AYell-beloved 
lives  eternally  with  a  life  all  triumphant.  Death  can- 
not sadden  a  heart  which  knows  that  its  Sovereign 
Love  is  living.  It  is  enough  for  the  soul  that  loves, 
that  lie  whom  it  loves  more  than  itself,  is  heaped  with 
eternal  blessings ;  for  such  a  soul  lives  more  in  Ilim 
whom  it  loves  than  in  the  body  that  it  animates ;  for 
in  truth  it  does  not  live  itself,  but  its  Well-beloved  lives 
in  it." 

The  love  of  complacency,  strictly  speaking,  is  the 
joy  we  feel  in  the  infinite  perfections  of  God,  that  He 
is  what  He  is.  But  just  as  the  knowledge  of  God,  by 
faith,  cannot  stop  at  knowledge,  but  passes  into  a  ne- 
cessary complacency,  and  that  necessary  complacency 
into  free  acts  of  Praise  and  of  Desire;  so  also  this  free 
love  of  complacency  cannot  terminate  in  itself.  It 
passes  on  to  another  and  a  further  love,  which  is  called 
the  love  of  benevolence.  Our  love  of  God  is  just  the 
opposite  of  God's  love  of  us.  He  loves  us  first  with  a 
love  of  benevolence,  working  in  us  all  the  good  we 
have,  and  then  when  it  is  worked,  loving  us  with  a  love 
of  complacency  in  His  own  work  within  us.  But  our 
benevolence  toward  God  is,  as  St.  Francis  of  Sales 
points  out,  merely  the  natural  consequence  of  our  com- 
placency in  Him.  We  first  rejoice  that  He  is  so  good 
and  perfect,  and  then  wish  Him,  if  it  were  possible, 
more  goodness  and  perfection  ;  and  this  last  act  is  the 

*  Amour  de  Dieu.  v.  iii. 


824  PRAISE    AND   DESIRE. 


love  of  benevolence.     To  explain  this  I  will  use  the 
words  of  St.  Francis  himself.* 

"  As  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  man  can  wish 
any  increase  of  happiness  or  perfection  to  God,  let  us 
examine  how  far  the  lo^e  of  benevolence  we  bear  Ilim 
is  a  real  and  solid  love.  As  God  is  the  centre  of  all 
good,  as  His  perfections  are  infinite,  and  consequently 
beyond  the  reach  of  our  desires  and  thoughts,  it  is 
evident  that  we  cannot  wish  Him,  at  least  with  an 
efficacious  desire,  any  perfection  which  could  add  to 
what  He  is  in  Himself.  Besides,  the  object  of  desire 
is  some  future  blessing,  whereas  in  God  all  perfection 
is  present,  and  so  present  that  it  forms  one  and  the 
same  thing  with  the  Divine  Essence,  which  exists  from 
all  eternity,  and  acquires  no  increase.  As  we  cannot 
form  any  real  or  absolute  desire,  with  regard  to  God, 
we  form  imaginary  and  conditional  wishes.  Thou  art 
my  God;  Thou  art  so  rich  in  Thyself  that  Thou  needest 
not  my  possessions.  But  if  it  were  possible  that  there 
was  any  thing  Thou  didst  not  already  possess,  I  should 
wish  it  to  Thee,  0  my  God !  I  should  long  to  procure 
it  for  Thee,  at  the  expense  of  my  life.  If,  being  what 
Thou  art,  and  what  thou  canst  not  cease  to  be,  it  were 
possible  that  some  new  perfection  could  be  added  to 
those  Thou  hast  already,  with  what  ardour  should  I 
desire  it  were  Thine !  I  should  wish  that  my  heart 
were  transformed  into  desires,  and  that  my  life  were 
consumed  in  sighs.  Yes,  0  Lord!  I  am  far  from  de- 
siring that  we  could  have  room  to  wish  Thee  any 
increase  of  perfection.  My  greatest  happiness  is  to 
think  that  we  cannot  add  to  Thy  Sovereign  Goodness 

*  Amour  de  Dieu.  lib.  v.  6 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  325 

CTon  la  desire.  But  if  thou  couldst  acquire  any  new 
advantage,  if  the  desire  of  seeing  Thee  more  perfect 
or  more  happy,  chimerical  as  it  is,  could  be  realized,  1 
should  wish  that  my  soul  were  totally  transformed  into 
this  desire,  that  my  ardour  in  wishing  Thee  any  per- 
fection which  Thou  didst  not  already  possess,  were  as 
lively  as  the  pleasure  I  now  feel  in  not  being  able  to 
desire  Thee  any  thing  Thou  hast  not.  How  sweet  this 
impotence  becomes  to  me,  0  my  God !  when  I  reflect 
that  it  is  founded  on  Thy  sovereign,  immense,  incom- 
prehensible riches,  which  would  be  capable  of  satiating 
an  infinite  desire,  could  it  exist,  so  as  to  be  transformed 
from  desire  to  infinite  enjoyment. 

*'  These  desires,  though  founded  on  imaginary  and 
impossible  suppositions,  are  very  pleasing  to  God,  and 
are  usually  formed  amid  the  transports  and  holy 
ecstasies  of  charity.  St.  Augustine  frequently  ex- 
perienced such  feelings,  and  the  words  in  which  he 
expressed  them  were  like  so  many  burning  arrows 
impelled  by  the  hand  of  love.  '  Yes,  Lord !'  said  he, 
*  I  am  Augustine  and  Thou  art  God ;  but  could  it  be 
possible  that  I  were  God,  and  Thou  Augustine,  1 
should  wish  to  change  conditions  with  Thee  that  Thou 
mightest  be  God  !'*  We  also  testify  love  of  benevolence 
for  the  Almighty,  when,  reflecting  that  we  cannot  add 
any  degree  to  His  perfections,  which  are  His  infinite 
and  essential  immensity,  we  endeavour  to  increase  in 
ourselves  His  accidental  greatness,  which  consists  in 
the  complacency  we  derive  from  knowing  that  He  is 


*  Some  writers,  among  whom  is  Schram,  uot  only  deny  that  St. 
Augustine  ever  used  these  words,  but  object  to  them  as  unsound,  and 
running  close  upon  condemned  propositions.    Cf.  Schram.    Myst.  Thcol 


326  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


infinittly  perfect,  and  which  increases  in  pioportion  as 
this  complacency  becomes  more  ardent.  We  do  not 
then  exercise  the  love  of  complacency  on  account  of 
any  pleasure  we  derive  from  it,  but  because  it  is  a 
source  of  delight  to  God.  "We  do  not  seek  our  happi- 
ness therein  as  our  own  happiness,  but  as  conformable 
to  that  of  God,  and  thereby  calculated  to  unite  us  to 
Him,  and  procure  us  the  enjoyment  of  His  infinite  per- 
fections. To  render  this  union  and  enjoyment  more 
excellent,  we  desire  to  communicate,  if  it  were  possible, 
an  infinite  strength  and  boundless  extent  to  com- 
placency. The  ever  blessed  Queen  and  mother  of  holy 
love  gives  us  an  example  of  this,  when  she  says,  'My 
soul  doth  magnify  the  Lord  !'  To  leave  no  doubt  that 
the  ardour  of  her  gratitude  derives  its  increase  from 
complacency,  she  immediately  adds,  '  My  spirit  hath 
rejoiced  in  God  my  Saviour.' " 

These  explanations  are  sufficient  for  my  purpose. 
"What  I  want  to  bring  you  to  is  this,  just  as  I  have 
urged  you  to  promote  the  glory  of  God,  the  interests  of 
Jesus,  and  the  saving  of  souls,  by  what  is  called  the 
love  of  condolence,  or  sorrowing  for  other  men's  sins, 
and  also  by  the  use  of  intercessory  prayers  and  thanks- 
givings, by  offering  up  your  own  actions  to  God  in 
union  with  those  of  our  dear  Lord,  and  also  by  offering 
up  to  Ilim  His  own  perfections,  and  the  mysteries  of 
Jesus  and  Mary,  the  angels  and  the  saints ;  so  now  I 
want  you  to  glorify  Him  in  like  manner  by  those  acts 
of  Praise  and  Desire,  which  come  of  these  two  loves  A 
Complacency  and  Benevolence.  Such  are,  1,  acts  of 
joy  that  God  is  what  He  is  ;  2,  acts  of  congratulation 
with  Him  on  His  perfections,  His  works,  and  the  mys- 
teries of  nis  Sacred  Humanity  ;  3,  acts  of  desire,  wish- 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  327 


ing  for  Ilim  impossible  things,  which  St.  Francis  of 
Sales  has  just  told  us  are  acts  of  real  love,  and  very 
acceptable  to  Ilim ;  4,  acts  of  desire,  wishing  for  Him 
that  lie  might  have  had  more  glory  from  the  world  in 
years  gone  by,  from  the  lost  souls,  and  the  like ;  5, 
acts  of  desire,  which  intercession  may  make  efficacious, 
that  He  may  be  more  glorified  than  He  is  now,  through 
tlie  perfection  of  the  saints  and  the  conversion  of  sin- 
ners, and  the  more  rapid  liberation  of  souls  from  pur- 
gatory ;  6,  acts  of  praise,  wishing  that  every  sand  of  the 
sea  and  leaf  of  the  woods  had  an  angel's  intelligence  to 
praise  Ilim,  and  offering  to  Him  again  and  again  with 
loving  ardour  the  actual  angelic  praise  of  heaven  ;  and 
7,  sighs  of  loving  sorrow,  condolence,  and  reparation, 
over  His  slighted  love,  His  outraged  Majesty,  His  for> 
gotten  goodness,  and  His  defrauded  glory.  It  is  true 
that  all  these  things  sound  like  the  breathings  of  very 
saints.  Yet  they  need  not  the  austerities  which  repel 
us,  nor  the  supernatural  powers  from  which  we  shrink 
as  much  in  dismay  as  in  humility.  And,  as  with  all 
the  other  things  recommended  in  the  previous  chapters, 
so  with  these,  how  much  might  we  do  at  such  a  little 
cost ! 

If  you  look  at  any  of  the  Saints,  you  will  see  that 
they  are  made  up  of  six  things.  First  of  all,  obedience 
to  the  commandments  of  God  and  the  precepts  of  the 
Church  ;  secondly,  thirdly,  and  fourthly,  strong  and 
loving  instincts  for  the  glory  of  God,  the  interests  of 
Jesus,  and  the  salvation  of  souls;  fifthly,  an  intense  love 
of  suffering  and  voluntary  austerities,  accompanied  by 
terrific  interior  trials  and,  what  mystics  call,  passive 
purgations  of  spirit;  and  sixthly,  supernatural  states 
i)f  prayer  unusual  gifts,  and  miraculous  powers.   Now 


328  PRAISF   AND   DESIRE. 


the  first  of  these  things  wre  may  put  aside,  because  W6 
must  all  have  it,  or  else  we  shall  not  be  saved.  The 
fifth,  most  likely,  yre  honestly  confess  we  do  not  feel, 
und  we  shrink  from  it,  as  well  out  of  humility  as  out 
of  cowardice ;  and,  as  a  consequence  of  this  shrinking, 
we  are  not  quite  so  blinded  by  self  love  as  not  to  see 
that  the  sixth  point  is  far  above  us,  and  unsuited  to 
our  present  attainments.  Thus  the  second,  third,  and 
fourth  points  remain,  as  something  beyond  the  common 
necessary  practice  of  the  faithful,  and  below  the  pinna- 
cles of  the  saints.  These  three  instincts  seem  open  to 
us,  inasmuch  as  the  austerities  which  frighten  us,  and 
the  supernatural  heights  of  prayer  which  are  out  of 
our  sight,  are  not  requisite  for  them.  Moreover,  which 
is  a  singular  consolation,  the  beauty  of  the  saints  lies 
rather  in  the  three  instincts  that  are  open  to  us,  than 
in  the  two  heights  to  which  we  dare  not  aspire. 

Now,  devout  people  formed  upon  the  three  instincts 
for  the  glory  of  God,  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the 
welfare  of  souls,  abound  in  Catholic  countries  in  good 
times,  and  seem  to  be  to  the  Church  what  the  middle 
classes  are  to  the  prosperity  of  the  state, — not  its 
heroes,  but  its  life,  strength,  muscle,  and  independence. 
They  are  the  growth  of  quiet  times.  Martyrs  can  be, 
and  will  be  made  out  of  them  by  scores,  when  troubles 
come.  But  saints,  the  spiritual  creations  of  an  interior 
life,  belong  to  another  order  of  things.  It  is  plain, 
then,  that  in  uneventful  times  it  is  our  chief  work  to 
increase  this  middle  class  of  the  faithful ;  otherwise  wo 
shall  be  such  dry  and  uninteresting  Christians,  that  wo 
shall  never  convert  those  outside  the  fold,  and,  what  ia 
even  of  more  importance,  we  shall  have  nobody  to  love 
our  multitudinous  poor,  or  to  take  any  generous,  per^ 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  329 


severing  pains  about  them.  It  is  equally  obvious  that 
it  is  the  devil's  game  to  lessen  the  number  of  this  class; 
and  this  he  does  in  two  vrays  especially — first,  by  giving 
devotion  a  bad  name,  inspiring  men  to  call  it  romantic, 
enthusiastic,  pretty,  youthful,  the  fervour  of  converts, 
fanciful,  novel,  unpractical,  and  the  like ;  and  secondly, 
by  leading  people  to  aim  too  high,  to  attempt  too  much, 
to  affect  mystical  books,  to  run  after  miracles  and  por- 
tents, to  make  rash  vows,  and  to  tempt  God  by  bur- 
dening themselves  with  a  multiplicity  of  prayers  :  and 
then,  when  their  wax  wings  are  melted  off,  in  weari- 
ness and  disgust,  they  sink  down  to  the  merest  obser- 
vance of  precepts,  and,  not  seldom,  even  lower  still. 

The  aim  of  this  treatise  is  to  draw  a  picture  of  this 
middle  class,  to  give  a  view  of  their  life,  to  exhibit 
samples  of  their  devotion,  and  to  make  out  a  case  for 
them.  It  was  mainly  this  sort  of  people  St.  Philip  set 
himself  to  multiply  in  Eome,  and  it  is  substantially  the 
chief  work  he  left  his  sons  to  do.  I  do  not  say  the 
exclusive  work,  else  we  should  lose  our  right  to  the 
crowds  of  dear  sinners  that  are  ever  gathering  them- 
selves to  the  odour  of  the  saint's  name,  and  to  the  lures 
of  his  little  apostolate.  If  then  you  want  to  be  a  saint, 
like  to  one  of  the  canonized,  this  is  not  the  book  for 
you.  I  hope  I  should  never  have  dreamed  of  writing 
it,  if  it  were  meant  for  you.  He  that  has  climbed  the 
rocks  can  alone  tell  you  the  secrets  of  the  rough  ascent. 
This  is  a  map  of  the  easy  ways  of  Divine  Love,  higher 
than  the  plains  and  above  their  dust,  yet  not  so  high 
as  to  be  beyond  the  region  of  sweet  flowers  and  shady 
trees,  and  tlic  coolness  of  bubbling  springs.  If  you 
have  ever  read  the  life  of  St.  Philip,  you  may  remember 
how  some  one  who  wanted  to  be  a  saint  dreamed  that 


330  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


the  holy  Father  was  dragging  him  through  rude  and 
prickly  briers.  I  wish  we  all  had  the  heart  to  face  the 
briers  ;  but  it  is  not  so,  and  it  is  of  no  use  trying  to  be 
good  by  theories.  Still,  to  love  God  is  a  great  thing, 
to  love  Him  more  and  more  a  greater,  and  to  make 
others  love  Him  so  great  that  it  is  a  joyous  surprise, 
ever  fresh,  and  new  every  day,  that  God  should  let 
such  as  we  are  do  so  great  a  thing. 

You  must  not  suppose  that  I  hold  cheap  the  practices 
of  mortification,  whether  outward  or  inward,  or  that  I 
think  affective  love  renders  effective  love  unnecessary, 
or  even  that  I  believe  interior  mortification  can  dis- 
pense from  the  obligation  of  bodily  penances  and  dis- 
comforts, in  the  case  of  those  who  are  aiming  at  per- 
fection. My  little  book  is  not  a  summa  of  ascetical 
theology.  But  because  we  cannot  rise  so  high,  there 
is  no  need  surely  to  sink  so  low.  Some  severe  spiritu- 
alists speak  as  if  affective  love  were  little  better  than 
a  delusion,  or  at  best  a  mere  service  of  hot  feelings.  Oh 
surely  this  is  hasty,  peremptory,  unkind,  not  like  the 
Church,  or  God.  I  grant  we  must  not  stop  there,  that 
we  must  go  on  to  mortify  our  inordinate  passions,  and 
work  and  suffer.  Yet  surely  merely  affective  love  is 
good  as  far  as  it  goes ;  neither  can  it  be  with  Catholics 
nothing  more  than  a  worship  of  feelings  ;  for  I  have 
shown  all  along,  and  theology  most  amply  bears  me 
out,  that  the  practices  of  it  may  be  made  most  solid, 
nay,  almost  inevitably  are  so.  And  then  affective  love 
is  the  way  to  effective.  Besides  this,  by  aiming  exclu- 
sively at  one  only,  we  most  commonly  lose  both.  I 
know  there  are  many  people  who  have  made  up  their 
minds  not  to  be  saints.  Well !  if  God  was  angry  with 
them,  and  counted  their  pusillanimity  as  sin,  if  Jesus 


PRAISE   AND  DESIRE.  331 


turned  away  frora  them  and  left  them  out  of  His  reck- 
oning, wc  need  take  no  pains  for  them.  But  He  does 
not  do  so :  and  therefore  we  may  well  affectionately  ask 
them  to  think,  if  they  will  not  be  saints,  whether  they 
will  not  love  our  dearest  Lord  as  far  as  Calvary,  with- 
out committing  themselves  to  the  crucifixion.  This 
will  come  home  to  us  most  feelingly,  when  our  poor 
ashamed  hearts  tell  us  that  we  ourselves  are  at  least 
among  the  well-intentioned  faint-hearted  cowards  of 
the  army  of  our  generous  and  unselfish  Lord. 

It  is  not  unfair,  though  I  pretend  to  be  pleading  for 
God's  glory  and  a  service  of  love,  to  assail  you  with 
arguments  drawn  from  your  own  interests.  I  am  sure 
many  of  you  are  not  contented  with  yourselves.  You 
want  to  love  God  more,  and  to  make  more  of  Jesus. 
You  want  to  get  out  of  your  cold,  dry,  unhandsome 
way  with  Him.  You  would  fain  have  more  liberty  of 
spirit,  and  feel  your  affections  more  at  large  in  religion, 
and  be  unaffectedly  more  familiar  with  the  instincts 
and  interests  of  Heaven.  You  see  that  the  service  of 
love  has  common  sense  on  its  side,  that  these  half  and 
half  measures  with  God  make  you  neither  happy  nor 
holy,  and,  besides,  something  in  your  heart  is  drawing 
you  closer  to  God,  and  winning  you  to  better  things. 
Now  look  what  these  acts  of  Praise  and  Desire  will  do 
for  you.  They  will  take  the  world  out  of  your  hearts, 
and  make  its  pleasures  look  small  and  dull  to  you. 
They  will  draw  you  into  quite  a  different  set  of  ideas 
and  associations,  of  affections  and  sympathies.  They 
will  make  the  practice  of  God's  presence  as  easy  to 
you  as  it  will  be  delightful.  They  will  settle  a  host  of 
cases  of  conscience  for  you,  by  raising  you  at  once  into 
a  clearer  atmosphere,  where  the  doubts  and  difficulties 


882  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


in  question  do  not  exist.  They  will  make  idleness, 
frivolity,  and  dissipation  intolerable  to  you,  because  of 
the  change  which  they  will  bring  about  in  your  tastes. 
Beautiful  angels  were  dull  to  St.  Mary  Magdalene  ;  for 
she  was  seeking  Jesus  that  Easter  morning.  What 
were  their  celestial  faces  and  their  dazzling  raiment  to 
her  ?  They  had  taken  away  her  Lord,  and  she  knew 
not  where  they  had  laid  Ilim.  The  gardener,  too,  as 
St.  Francis  sweetly  says,  reminded  her  only  of  flowers, 
while  her  head  was  full  of  nails  and  thorns  and  crosses ; 
yet  as  he  has  come  in  her  way,  she  will  out  with  her 
one  thought,  "  Sir,  if  thou  hast  taken  Him  hence,  tell 
me  where  thou  hast  laid  Ilim,  and  I  will  take  Him 
away."  The  three  kings  hurried  through  Jerusalem; 
the  court  only  made  them  fret ;  they  could  rest  no- 
where but  with  their  star  at  the  crib  of  Jesus  in  the 
cave  of  Bethlehem.  The  spouse  met  the  watchmen  of 
the  city,  and  her  heart  also  was  on  her  lips :  "  Have  you 
seen  Him  whom  my  soul  loveth  V^  So  these  acts  of 
Praise  and  Desire  make  new  men  of  us.  We  are  all 
for  heaven.  Death  even  changes  its  aspect.  All  things 
seem  easy  which  are  for  Jesus,  all  things  welcome  which 
are  steps  to  Him.  How  differently  people  feel !  When 
some  one  told  Father  Dominic,  the  Passionist,  whose 
memory  is  dear  to  so  many  of  us,  that  she  feared  the 
particular  judgment,  the  tears  started  into  his  eyes,  and 
he  cried  out  in  his  natural  way,  **  Oh,  but  how  sweet  to 
see  for  the  first  time  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus." 
This  is  what  Praise  and  Desire  bring  us  to.  We  can- 
not be  all  we  wish  on  this  side  the  grave.  But  we  can 
get  on  toward  it  by  means  of  love.  We  can  bring 
matters  to  this  comfortable  simplicity  of  the  Spouse, 
"  My  beloved  to  Me,  and  I  to  Him,  who  feedeth  amcng 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  333 

the  lilies  till  the  day  break,  and  the  shadows  retire."* 
Yes,  there  it  is  !  till  the  day  break,  and  the  shadows 
retire:  till  the  day  break,  and  the  shadows  retire  :  till 
the  day  break,  and  the  shadows  retire  ! 

1.  My  first  example  of  practices  of  Praise  and  Desire 
shall  be  takeii  from  no  less  authoritative  a  book  than 
the  Raccolta  of  Indulgences.  There  is  in  it  a  chaplet 
of  acts  of  divine  love,  indulgenced  by  Pius  YII.  iu 
1818.  I  will  extract  some  of  those  which  illustrate  the 
present  subject.  I  desire,  0  my  God,  to  see  Thee  loved 
by  all.  Oh,  happy  me !  if  I  could  give  my  blood  to 
make  all  men  love  Thee.  Come,  all  creatures,  and  love 
my  God.  0  my  God  !  that  I  had  a  thousand  hearts  to 
love  Thee  with,  or  that  I  had  the  hearts  of  all  men, 
that  I  might  love  Thee  with  them.  Oh,  that  there 
were  more  worlds  than  there  are,  that  all  might  love 
Thee !  What  a  joy  it  would  be  !  Happy  he  who  could 
love  Thee  with  the  hearts  of  all  possible  creatures.  I 
rejoice  that  the  angels  and  the  blessed  love  Thee  in 
heaven ;  and  I  desire  to  love  Thee  with  all  the  love 
wherewith  the  saints  most  enamoured  of  Thee  loved 
Thee,  and  St.  Joseph,  and  our  blessed  Lady  in  each  one 
of  her  mysteries,  and  our  dearest  Lord  in  each  one  of 
His  mysteries,  and  in  all  the  tabernacles  where  He  is 
now  lying  hid  in  the  Blessed  Sacrament.  I  would  fiiin 
love  Thee  with  that  very  love  with  which  He  loves  Thee 
in  heaven  at  this  hour,  and  will  love  Thee  to  all  eter- 
nity ;  and,  last  of  all,  I  desire  and  intend  to  love  Thee 
with  all  that  love  wherewith,  0  my  God  !  Thou  lovest 
Thyself. 

2.  The  following  congratulations  are  recommended 

*  Cant.  U.  16. 17. 


834  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


by  Lancisius  in  his  devotions  to  Jesus  Hisen.*  1.  To 
congratulate  Jesus  Risen  on  the  gifts  of  His  glorified 
Body,  and  on  all  He  merited  by  his  death,  such  as  His 
triumphant  ascension,  royal  dignity,  and  dominion 
over  the  whole  world,  and  plenitude  of  power  in  hea- 
ven and  on  earth,  the  supreme  headship  of  the  Church, 
and  His  judicial  office,  and  other  things  which  we  do 
not  know,  and  which  are  not  enumerated  by  theolo- 
gians. 2.  To  congratulate  Him  on  the  manifold  fruit 
of  His  life,  Passion,  and  death,  both  among  angels  and 
men,  and  especially  all  the  grace  whereby  the  good 
angels  were  confirmed  in  grace,  and  all  the  graces  of 
all  kinds,  innumerable  and  indescribable,  which  men 
have  had,  to  hinder  sin,  or  to  raise  them  out  of  sin,  or 
to  lift  them  to  perfection,  all  sacraments  and  indul- 
gences, and  finally,  the  resurrection  of  our  bodies.  It 
will  not  be  out  of  place  here  to  mention  the  particular 
devotion  of  Sister  Maria  Denise,  of  the  Visitation,  to 
her  Guardian  Angel.  It  was  to  congratulate  him  on 
the  one  only  fact  of  his  past  history  of  which  she  had 
sure  knowledge,  the  grace  he  received  to  stand  in  grace 
when  the  angels  were  falling  all  round  him.  3.  To 
congratulate  Him  on  the  innumerable  choirs  of  angels 
and  holy  souls  in  heaven,  who  adore  Him  as  their 
supreme  Head,  the  giver  and  cause  of  all  their  graces 
and  honours,  and  on  the  divine  worship  which  is  paid 
to  Him  in  heaven  and  out  of  heaven,  on  earth,  in  pur- 
gatory, by  masses,  churches,  images,  vows,  and  all  the 
good  works  which  will  ever  be  done  up  to  the  last  day. 
4.  To  praise  Him  for  that  immense  charity  by  which, 
as  St.  Dionysius  tells  us,  He  revealed  to  St.  Carpus  that 

*  u.  90. 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  335 


He  was  ready  to  suffer  death  over  again  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  human  race  ;  and  by  which  also  He  revealed 
the  same  to  St.  Bridget :  "  Oh,  ray  friends,"  said  He, 
"  so  tenderly  do  I  love  My  sheep,  that  rather  than  bo 
without  them,  I  would,  if  it  were  possible,  die  over 
again  by  a  special  death,  equal  to  the  one  upon  the 
cross,  for  each  separate  one  of  them  I"  Another  time 
He  said,  "  Oh,  if  it  were  possible,  I  would,  with  most 
eager  love,  die  over  again  as  many  times  as  there  are 
souls  in  hell  V  These  things,  alas  for  our  stony  hearts  ! 
help  us,  by  our  dearest  Lord's  (may  I  say  it?)  extrava- 
gant love  of  us,  to  measure  our  miserable  pretence  of 
loving  Him ! 

3.  As  the  acts  I  am  dwelling  on  are  principally  in- 
terior ones,  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  quote  St.  Mary 
Magdalene  of  Pazzi's  preparation  for  Whitsuntide. 
She  uttered  it  in  a  rapture  on  Ascension  Day.  "  0 
Holy  Apostles,  when  the  Lord  ascended  into  heaven, 
He  taught  you  what  to  do  before  receiving  the  Holy 
Ghost :  do  you  now  teach  me  !  0  pure  John  !  0  ami- 
able Philip  !  you  will  not  deny  me.  Tell  me  what  my 
upper  chamber  ought  to  be,  and  what  my  interior  and 
exterior  operations  in  these  few  days.  It  will  be  well 
to  build  my  chamber  on  high.  It  shall  be  the  Side  of 
the  Word,  in  which  I  will  dwell  in  the  union  of  love. 
What  must  be  my  spiritual  meat  and  drink  ?  I  will 
masticate  it  well,  as  if  with  every  tooth,  and  it  shall  be 
the  consideration  of  all  the  operations,  great  or  most 
humble,  of  the  Incarnate  Word  while  He  abode  with 
us.  My  drink  shall  be  the  Blood  which  flowed  from 
those  four  fountains  of  His  sacred  Hands  and  Feet; 
and  sometimes  I  will  go  to  draw  of  that  fountain  of 
many  rivulets,   His   adorable  Head.     0  enamoured 


336  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


Word !  thirty-three  years  Thou  didst  abide  with  us,  and 
I  ought  to  make  thirty-three  acts  of  self-annihilation 
between  day  and  night.  And  this  will  be  one  of  my 
interior  operations.  Eight  days  after  Thy  Nativity 
Thou  didst  shed  Thy  Blood  for  us,  and  I  ought  to  make 
eight  examens  of  conscience  in  the  day  ;  for  if  the  soul 
is  not  well  examined  and  cleansed  from  its  defects,  it  is 
not  fit  to  shed  its  blood  for  Thee,  that  is,  to  offer  itself- 
to  Thee  in  the  act  of  martyrdom;  and,  as  often  as  I 
make  this  examen  of  conscience,  I  will  add  a  renewal 
of  my  religious  vows.  Forty  days  didst  Thou  abide 
upon  the  earth  after  the  resurrection,  and  forty  times 
ought  I  to  elevate  my  mind  to  Thee  between  day  and 
night.  Seven  years  wert  Thou  in  Egypt,  and  seven 
times  a  day  must  I  offer  to  Thee  those  who  lie  in  the 
darkness  of  sin.  Forty  days  didst  Thou  remain  after 
Thy  birth  before  Thou  wert  offered  in  the  temple,  and 
forty  times  a  day  must  I  offer  myself  to  Thee  to  execute 
Thy  good  pleasure.  My  spiritual  nourishment  will  be 
the  daily  meditation  of  Thy  most  holy  Passion  joining 
with  it  the  meditation  of  that  ardent  love  wherewith 
Thou  wert  incarnate,  of  that  humility  wherewith  Thou 
didst  converse  with  men,  of  that  gentleness  wherewith 
Thou  didst  preach,  and  of  that  joy  wherewith  Thou 
didst  listen  to  the  Chananoean  and  Samaritan  woman. 
She  did  not  ask  Thee,  but  Thou  didst  invite  her  to  ask 
I  will  meditate  also  on  those  words,  '  This  is  My  be- 
loved Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased ;  My  meat  is  to 
do  the  will  of  My  Father ;  Learn  of  me,  for  I  am  meek 
and  humble  of  heart.'  Twelve  years  Thou  didst  delay, 
before  Thou  didst  show  Thy  wisdom  ;  I  will  make 
twelve  interior  acts  of  love  of  my  neighbour,  and  twelve 
more  of  humility,  also  interior.     Oh  how  many  occa- 


PRAISK   AND   DESIRE.  337 


Bionji  if  these  interior  acts  ojffer  themselves  to  us,  how 
man^  captivities  of  the  judgment  and  the  will !  Seven 
times  tnli  t  adore  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  in  the  room  of 
those  vrno  do  not  do  so  ;  seven  times,  too,  will  I  adore 
my  Christ,  who  bears  His  cross  with  His  Head  bowed 
down  for  aif  the  elect.  Thrice  will  I  give  particular 
praise  to  the  most  holy  Virgin,  as  mother  and  special 
protectress  of  all  religious  souls,  that  she  may  concur 
particularly  with  her  assistance  to  our  observation  of 
our  religious  vows.  And  as  often  as  opportunity  offers 
will  I  perform  aeis  cf  charity  to  my  neighbour,  with  all 
possible  love  and  gayety  of  mind.  I  will  keep  an  un- 
broken watch  over  my  senses,  and,  not  to  be  reputed 
singular,  I  will  do  this  rtt  proper  times  and  in  proper 
ways ;  for,  if  I  never  iooRed  at  any  one,  they  might 
think  that  I  was  angry  wiih  them,  and  if  I  never  an- 
swered them,  they  would  Guspect  something.  Thrice 
in  the  day  I  will  remind  my  sisters  of  the  dignity  of 
our  vocation,  saying  something  in  praise  of  it,  and  I 
will  bear  it  in  mind  myself  continually.  As  often  as 
occasion  offers,  I  will  console  the  afflicted,  whether 
their  pains  be  interior  or  exterior ;  and  at  the  end  of 
each  action,  I  will  endeavour  to  remain  in  a  continual 
unbroken  act  of  charity,  and  of  custody  of  the  heart." 
This  devotion  is  plainly  not  suitable  for  all;  but  it  is 
edifying  and  instructive  for  all.  For,  what  a  real  gain 
it  is,  to  find  out  how  little  we  love  God,  and  how  shab- 
bily we  serve  Him  !  This  is  one  great  good  of  reading 
the  Lives  of  the  Saints.  Because  a  saint  is  not  imita- 
ble,  it  does  not  follow  his  life  is  not  practical.  Nay, 
for  the  most  part  it  is  the  admirable  lives  of  saints 
which  toach  us  most  humility,  and  kindle  in  us  greatest 
love. 

X  29 


338  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


4.  Under  this  head  will  come  the  custom  which  pre- 
vails ill  some  religious  orders  of  renewing  the  vows  of 
religion  at  certain  times.  This  will  equally  apply  to 
the  renewal  of  any  vow  by  which  a  devout  person  may 
have  bound  himself  to  God,  or  any  solemn  purpose 
short  of  a  vow.  It  is  another  instance  of  the  artifices 
of  God's  love.  Just  as  He  allows  us  to  offer  to  Ilim  the 
mysteries  of  Jesus,  as  if  they  were  our  own,  so  does 
He  allow  us  to  offer  to  Him  our  own  vows  again  and 
again,  and  thus  to  multiply  His  own  glory  and  our 
merit  many  times  by  the  same  action.  "NYe  learn  from 
St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi  how  acceptable  this  re- 
newal of  vows  is  to  God.  She  says,*  "  As  often  as  pro- 
mises made  to  God  are  renewed,  a  renewal  of  union 
with  God  takes  place,  and  the  beloved  soul  acquires 
more  or  less  union  with  Him,  according  to  the  state  of 
perfection  in  which  it  is  at  the  time,  and  to  the  degree 
of  charity  it  has.  This  renewal,  made  by  the  soul  in- 
teriorly, is  a  solace  to  the  Holy  Trinity,  because  it  is 
a  renewal  of  the  interior  complacency  of  the  soul,  made 
with  this  oblation  to  God,  and  always  recalling  the  first 
pleasure  of  the  first  oblation  with  new  complacency  and 
new  delight ;  and  it  is  as  grateful  to  Mary,  as  if  she 
herself  renewed  her  vow  of  chastity.  It  is  the  glory 
of  the  angels,  because  it  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  holy  in- 
spirations which  have  been  sent  us  by  their  ministry ; 
and  it  is  also  the  exultation  of  the  saints,  because  they 
see  others  following  their  Creator  in  the  same  steps 
wherein  they  followed  Him  themselves.  It  is  a  solace 
to  the  choir  of  virgins  who  repeat  their  new  song,  see- 
ing that  that  virtue  is  increased  which  they  practised 

*Vlt.c.ll8. 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  339 


with  such  special  affection  ;  and  it  increases  their  glory, 
because  as  often  as  this  renewal  is  made,  it  is  as  if  a 
feast  of  the  virgins  were  being  celebrated.  The  soul 
itself  acquires  great  fruit  by  it.  For  all  graces  are  in- 
creased in  it,  all  its  promises  strengthened,  a  new  peace 
and  union  begin  in  it,  whose  fruit  is  seen  in  its  conver- 
sation and  works.  Oh,  of  how  great  dignity  are  these 
vows  and  promises  to  God  at  solemn  profession,  since 
the  mere  renewal  of  them  has  such  effects,  and  pro- 
duces such  fruit  to  the  soul!  It  is  not  wonderful, 
therefore,  0  "Word !  that  they  who  have  light,  the  order 
of  Thy  most  Holy  Name  (Jesuits)  should  celebrate  this 
renewal  as  a  solemn  feast,  especially  as  worldly  men 
make  so  much  of  their  birthday,  or  the  anniversary  of 
some  great  dignity.  Ah  !  how  much  more  ought  we  to 
celebrate  with  spiritual  feast  and  jubilee  the  day  on 
which  we  were  united  to  God  by  so  strong  a  chain 
never  to  be  snapped  asunder  V  The  saint  herself  used 
to  renew  her  vows  daily,  because  she  regarded  them  as 
something  divine,  and  a  singular  privilege  conferred 
by  God  on  the  souls  whom  He  calls  into  holy  religion. 
She  considered  them  as  the  "  price  and  treasures  of  Pa- 
radise,'' and  she  loved  them  as  the  "  chains  of  Divine 
Love." 

St.  Francis  Xavier  used  to  renew  his  vows  frequently, 
and  said  that  whenever  he  did  so,  he  felt  his  youth 
renewed  as  an  eagle's ;  and  he  often  told  his  brother 
Jesuits  that  a  daily  renewal  of  their  vows  was  one  of 
the  best  defences  against  the  attacks  and  snares  of 
Satan.  Lancisius  tells  us  that  Father  Cerruto,  an 
Italian  Jesuit,  used  to  renew  his  vows  mentally  three 
thousand  times  a  day:  and  one  octave  of  the  Epiphany, 
he  completed  faithfully  the  twenty-four  thousand  times. 


340  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


So  also  in  the  life  of  the  Blessed  Alphonso  Eodrigucz, 
a  Jesuit  lay-brother,  we  read  that  he  used  to  renew  hia 
vows  every  day,  and  that  this  renewal  kept  hira  always 
in  a  state  of  fervour.  Our  Lord  signified  to  Him  that 
this  devotion  was  acceptable  to  Ilim,  and  showed  hira  as 
well  the  profit  that  would  come  of  it  to  his  soul,  as  the 
gifts  with  which  He  was  going  to  enrich  him  because  of 
it.  One  day  when  he  was  hearing  mass,  renewing  his 
vows,  and  thanking  God  for  his  vocation  to  the  Society 
with  great  fervour,  he  was  visited  with  an  extraordi- 
nary light,  which  seemed  to  him  to  exceed  all  created 
light  whatsoever.  By  this  light  he  perceived  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  blessings  which  he  had  received  up  to 
this  time,  his  own  indignity  and  misery,  and  the  impos- 
sibility of  adequately  thanking  God  for  them.  Feeling 
his  heart  filled  with  a  pious  shame,  he  did  not  dare  to 
look  up  toward  his  Benefactor,  nor  even  to  open  his 
mouth  in  thanksgiving,  but  recollected  and  abased  him- 
self in  silence.  But  God,  to  whom  the  prayer  of  the 
humble  is  always  pleasing,  showed  Himself  pleased  by 
this  new  kind  of  thanksgiving  with  the  silence  of  the 
tongue,  and  said  to  him  with  a  voice  heard  by  his  out- 
ward ears,  "  Alphonso !  walk  always  before  Me  in  this 
exercising  of  renewing  thy  vows,  and  all  things  shall 
turn  out  well  to  thee !"  This  favour  threw  the  humble 
lay-brother  into  still  greater  confusion,  and  mindful  of 
his  own  unworthiness,  he  thought  it  was  a  delusion 
of  the  devil.  But  again  he  heard  God  speaking, 
"  Alphonso !  why  dost  thou  fear  ?  Here  is  no  cause 
for  fear ;  for  there  is  no  delusion  in  it ;  do  what  I  bid 
you !"  And  at  the  same  time  He  gave  hira  an  interior 
conviction  that  all  this  was  from  Himself. 


PRAISE   AND    DESIRE.  341 


Lancisius*  relates  an  anecdote  of  a  man  o  groat 
prudence  and  judgment  who  joined  the  Society.  Every 
thing  in  it  pleased  him  except  the  renewal  of  vows 
which  seemed  to  him  a  frivolity  and  impertinence 
When  the  day  for  the  renewal  of  vows  came  round,  he 
felt  the  greatest  repugnance  in  his  mind ;  but  mor- 
tifying his  own  judgment  and  self-love,  he  made  the 
renewal,  though  with  such  confusion,  that  he  hardly 
knew  where  he  was.  God,  however,  rewarded  his 
obedience.  When  the  priest  before  whom  he  had  made 
the  renewal,  came  to  him  with  the  Blessed  Sacrament 
to  communicate  him,  he  saw  our  Lord  in  the  Host,  and 
was  filled  with  wonderful  consolation,  and  a  light  which 
disclosed  to  him  how  acceptable  to  God  was  this  renewal 
of  vows.  Bursting  into  tears,  he  perceived  his  mistake, 
and  the  abundance  of  divine  grace  continued  pouring 
into  him  for  a  long  time,  so  that  he  was  not  able  to 
speak. 

All  this  will  apply  in  its  measure  to  the  renewal  of 
good  purposes  and  heroic  desires.  Thomas  k  Kempis 
tells  us  in  the  Imi^tation  to  renew  our  good  purposeo 
every  day,  and  excite  ourselves  to  fervour  as  if  we  had 
only  been  converted  to-day ;  and  Lancisius  recommends 
certain  classes  of  heroic  acts  and  desires,  which  it  would 
be  well  for  us  thus  to  renew.  1.  Acts  of  humiliation, 
and  our  own  nothingness.  Our  Blessed  Lord  said  to 
St.  Mary  Magdalene  of  Pazzi,  *'  Whenever  you  make  an 
act  of  your  own  nothingness,  remember,  that  as  a  crea- 
ture cannot  live  without  a  heart,  so  you  cannot  live 
without  Me.  As  long  as  this  knowledge  remains  in 
you,  you  may  be  sure  that  you  will  remain  united  with 

*U.  2  6. 
29* 


>42  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE 


Me ;  and  My  peace  shall  be  with  you  even  while  you 
seem  to  be  waging  perpetual  war  against  temptations, 
which,  by  My  permission,  shall  assail  you,  but  shall 
.not  overcome  you  ;  the  more  sharply  they  attack  you, 
the  more  shall  my  favourable  assistance  superabound  in 
you,  though  you  shall  not  feel  its  presence  or  its  sweet- 
ness." Another  time  He  said  to  Her,  "They  who  serve 
Me,  should  do  so  with  such  humility  as  plunges  their 
souls  to  the  centre  of  the  earth;  for  just  as  a  frilling 
arrow  does  not  rest  until  it  touches  the  ground,  so  My 
Spirit  rests  only  in  the  soul  which  it  finds  in  the  centre 
of  its  own  nothingness."  Elsewhere  God  the  Father 
said  to  her,  *'  The  ladder  of  the  words  of  My  Word  is 
loftier  than  Jacob's  ladder,  for  its  foot  is  in  the  soul, 
which,  by  humility  and  self-knowledge,  is  lower  even 
than  the  abyss  in  which,  by  lowly  opinion  of  itself,  it 
plunges,  and  by  the  true  knowledge  of  itself  it  comes 
even  unto  My  inmost  being.  And  this  is  the  difference 
between  the  two  ladders,  that  Jacob's  ladder  did  not 
reach  beyond  heaven,  nor  descend  lower  than  the  face 
of  the  earth ;  but  this  ladder  goes  ])eyond  the  stars,  in 
proportion  as  the  soul  humbles  itself;  nay,  it  is  exalted 
even  to  My  inmost  being,  for  the  soul's  humility  is  its 
exaltation."  2.  Desires  and  purposes  to  avoid  all  deli- 
berate sin  and  even  imperfection :  so  that  with  St. 
Augustine  we  would  rather  die  than  sin,  with  St.  Chry- 
sostom  rather  see  the  face  of  hell  than  offend  God,  and 
with  the  heroic  paradox  of  the  Blessed  Alphonso  Rod- 
riguez, rather  be  thrust  into  hell  for  no  fault  at  all, 
than  offend  God  by  the  very  least  conceivable  venial  sin. 
3.  Desires  and  purposes  to  endure  all  sorts  of  things  for 
the  sake  of  our  dear  Lord,  such  as  St.  Ignatius  puts  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ  in  tho 


PRAISE   AND    DESIRE.  343 


second  week  of  the  Exercises,  "Behold,  0  supreme 
King  and  Lord  of  all,  I,  though  most  unworthy,  yet 
relying  on  Thy  grace  and  help,  offer  myself  entirely  to 
Thee,  and  submit  all  I  have  to  Thy  will,  declaring 
before  Thine  infinite  goodness,  and  in  the  sight  of  the 
glorious  Virgin  Thy  Mother,  and  all  the  heavenly 
court,  that  this  is  my  mind,  my  desire,  and  my  decree, 
to  follow  Thee  as  nearly  as  I  can,  and  to  imitate  Thee 
in  bearing  insults  and  adversities  with  true  patience, 
both  interior  and  exterior.  4.  Desires  and  purposes 
about  the  love  of  our  enemies.  5.  Desires  and  pur- 
poses to  give  up  all  our  will  and  liberty  to  God,  without 
ever  retracting  them,  and  without  excepting  any  thing 
from  the  sacrifice. 

That  these  mere  desires  are,  as  sacrifices  of  love,  most 
acceptable  to  Almighty  God,  may  be  seen  also  from  the 
fact  of  His  so  often  inspiring  His  servants  with  pious 
designs,  which  lie  never  intends  them  to  accomplish, 
as  in  the  case  of  Abraham's  sacrifice  of  Isaac,  and  St. 
Philip's  desire  to  go  to  the  Indies  to  preach  the  Gospel 
and  to  shed  his  blood.  The  lives  of  the  Saints  furnish 
us  with  repeated  instances  of  this.  Thus  it  comes  to 
pass  that  what  St.  Francis  of  Sales  says  is  true,  that 
even  to  wish  impossible  wishes  about  God  Himself  and 
His  perfections  is  real  worship  and  substantial  love, 
and  acceptable  to  Him.  This  opens  out  to  us  many^ 
trains  of  thought,  and  if  our  hearts  were  what  they 
ought  to  be,  it  would  open  out  to  us  many  fountains  of 
loving  tears. 

"While,  for  the  good  of  our  own  souls  as  well  as  t&r 
the  glory  of  God,  we  take  pains  to  cultivate  the  spirit 
of  praise  in  ourselves,  we  must  not  forget  that  in  reality 
it  is  not  so  much  a  virtue  of  our  own  as  a  gift  of 


"■"SlTr) 


344  niAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


God ;  and  so  to  be  sought  from  IHm  by  special  payer. 
Neither  should  we  omit  to  claim  for  this  purpose  the 
patronage  of  St.  Gertrude,  who  was  eminent  even  among 
the  saints  for  her  wonderful  spirit  of  incessant  praise. 
If  we  could  imitate  her  in  this,  we  might  come  at  length 
to  a  participation  in  her  equally  wonderful  liberty  of 
spirit.  How  much  depends  upon  this  liberty,  and  how 
intimately  is  it  connected  with  a  spirit  of  praise !  I 
wish  men  could  be  persuaded  to  study  St.  Gertrude 
more  than  they  do  ;  for  most  certainly  our  great  defect 
is  the  want  of  liberty  of  spirit.  This  is  the  chief  reason 
why  the  service  of  love  is  comparatively  so  rare  among 
Christians.  Surely,  if  persons  living  in  the  world,  and 
in  society,  wish  to  lead  a  devout  life,  they  should 
not  suppose  that  a  conventual  life,  diluted  and  lowered, 
can  be  the  proper  fashion  of  spirituality  for  them. 
From  their  position  and  their  duties  they  cannot  com- 
mand their  OAvn  time,  or  break  up  their  day  into  halves 
and  quarters  of  hours,  as  if  they  were  in  a  quiet  cloister, 
and  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  follow  the  chimes  of  an 
abbey  clock.  Hence,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  to  tell 
such  people  that  they  must  draw  up  a  written  rule  and 
keep  to  it;  and  that  the  captivity  of  set  times  for 
spiritual  drill  is  their  only  hope,  is  as  good  as  telling 
them  that  persons  living  in  modern  society  must  not 
attempt  to  lead  what  is  called  a  devout  lite.  How 
many  have  given  devotion  up  altogether,  because  they 
have  tried  a  rule,  and  found  they  could  not  keep  it ! 
How  many  have  leaned  their  whole  weight  upon  fixed 
hours  and  appointed  ways  of  doing  things,  upon  clock- 
work and  over-division,  and  have  broken  down,  because 
■weak  health,  or  a  change  of  duties,  or  the  interference 
of  a  London  season  have  made  their  fixed  hours  and 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  345 


stereotyped  ways  impossible  !  If  spirituality  is  made 
dry,  it  will  never  wear.  It  will  crack  in  a  dozen 
places  in  a  week,  like  the  skin  poncho  of  a  Patagonian. 
People  living  in  the  world  are  sure  to  put  it  disdain- 
fully on  one  side  very  shortly,  and  to  make  themselves 
at  home  in  a  state  of  low  attainments.  They  have 
tried  spirituality,  and  it  did  not  answer.  It  did  not 
last.  And  so  because  their  own  kind  of  spirituality 
was  a  failure,  they  have  no  faith  in  any  other  kind.  It 
is  incredible  how  soon  people  can  make  themselves  com- 
fortable in  low  things.  It  is  as  frightening,  too,  as  it 
is  incredible.  If  it  were  not  for  this  fatal  facility  of 
settling  down,  common  sense,  honest  shame,  and  rea 
sonable  discretion  might  win  the  day  at  last.  But  this 
settling  down  is  like  the  hedgehog  policy.  Rough 
ness  does  not  hurt  it ;  sweetness  cannot  win  it ;  and 
persuasion  leaves  it  as  it  found  it,  prickly  and  imper- 
turbable. 

Now,  the  failure  of  this  regimental  kind  of  holiness, 
as  well  as  the  idea  that  no  other  kind  is  safe  or  solid, 
comes  entirely  from  the  want  of  liberty  of  spirit. 
Where  the  law  of  the  Lord  is,  where  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  is,  there  is  liberty.  No  one  can  be  at  all  ac- 
quainted with  the  old-fashioned  Benedictine  school  of 
spiritual  writers,  without  perceiving  and  admiring  the 
beautiful  liberty  of  spirit  which  pervades  and  possesses 
their  whole  mind.  It  is  just  what  we  should  expect 
from  an  Order  of  such  matured  traditions.  It  were 
well  if  we  had  more  reprints  and  translations  of  them. 
St.  Gertrude  is  a  fair  specimen  of  them.  She  is 
thoroughly  Benedictine.  There  are  whole  treatises 
on  the  spiritual  life  which  people  living  in  the  world 
read  through,  and  feel  quite  honestly  that  the  method 


346  PRAISE   AND  DESIRE. 


proposed  to  them  is  a  bondage  which  it  would  bfl 
a  simple  indiscretion  for  them  to  attempt.  Every 
young  gentleman  must  be  a  quasi-seminarist,  or  giv9 
up  devotion.  Every  young  lady  must  be  a  kind  of 
half  nun,  without  a  habit,  or  she  may  as  well  cease  to 
attempt  to  be  any  thing  better  than  all  the  other  young 
ladies  round  about  her.  Oh,  how  all  this  stands  in  the 
way  of  love,  of  wise  love,  of  such  love  as  Jesus  would 
have  from  every  one  of  us !  To  turn  the  world  into 
a  great  lax  convent  is  not  the  way  to  further  the  cause 
of  our  dearest  Lord.  Spiritual  postures  may  create 
self-righteousness.  They  are  but  poor  helps  to  real, 
unaffected,  enduring  piety.  A  spirit  of  breadth,  a 
spirit  of  liberty,  that  is  the  Catholic  spirit ;  and  it  was 
eminently  the  badge  of  the  old  Benedictine  ascetics. 
Modern  writers  for  ihe  most  part  have  tightened  things, 
and  have  lost  by  it,  instead  of  gaining.  By  frighten- 
ing people  they  have  lessened  devotion  in  extent,  and 
by  overstraining  they  have  lowered  it  in  degree. 

It  is  difficult  to  speak  well  of  liberty  of  spirit  with- 
out seeming  to  recommend  negligence,  or  to  counte- 
nance unpunctuality,  slovenliness,  and  caprice.  But 
we  may  safely  illustrate  the  manner  from  St.  Gertrude 
herself.  The  following  may  be  taken  as  specimens 
of  her  delightful  liberty  of  spirit.  We  are  told*  that 
she  never  stayed  away  from  holy  communion  through 
fear  of  the  dangers  which  her  spiritual  books  told  her 
were  incurred  by  those  who  communicated  unworthily. 
On  the  contrary,  the  more  keenly  she  felt  her  imper- 
fections, the  more  eagerly  she  ran  to  our  Blessed  Lord, 
sustained  by  a  lively  hope  and  a  zealous  love  of  God, 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  847 


She  was  excited  thereto  by  a  sentiment  of  humility 
"which  caused  her  to  regard  as  useless,  and  almost  un- 
worthy of  consideration,  all  the  good  works  she  could 
do,  and  all  the  practices  by  which  men  ordinarily  pre- 
pare themselves  for  Communion.  On  this  account, 
also,  she  never  abstained  from  Communion,  as  many 
people  do,  when  she  happened  not  to  have  gone  through 
her  ordinary  exercises,  esteeming  all  the  efi\)rts  of 
human  devotion  in  comparison  of  the  free  gift  which 
is  given  us  in  the  Holy  Eucharist,  as  a  single  drop  of 
water  to  the  vastness  of  the  sea.  Thus,  without  too 
great  an  attachment  to  any  of  her  particular  prepara- 
tions, she  leaned  upon  the  infinite  condescension  of 
God,  and  cared  only  to  receive  that  august  Sacrament 
into  a  loving  heart. 

On  one  occasion,  when  she  was  travelling,  she  fell  by 
some  accident  from  a  dangerous  height.  Full  of  joy, 
she  cried  out,  "Oh,  my  sweet  Saviour!  what  a  bless- 
ing it  would  have  been  for  me,  if  this  fall  had  shortened 
my  road  to  Thee!"  Some  of  her  companions  were  a 
little  scandalized  at  this,  and  asked  her  if  she  was  not 
afraid  of  dying  without  the  sacraments.  "I  should 
wish  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,"  she  answered, 
"to  be  fortified  by  the  sacraments  before  I  die;  but  I 
have  the  hardihood  to  prefer  the  providence  of  my 
Lord  and  my  God  to  all  sacraments,  and  I  think  this  the 
worthiest  preparation  for  death.  It  is  a  matter  of  in- 
diflTerence  to  me  whether  my  death  be  slow  or  sudden, 
provided  it  be  agreeable  in  the  sight  of  Him  to  whom 
I  trust  it  will  conduct  me.  For  I  hope,  however  I  die, 
to  find  the  mercy  of  God,  without  which  I  shall  be  lost 
eternally,  no  matter  how  long  a  preparation  I  may 
have  made  for  death." 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


A  pious  person  had  prayed  for  a  long  time  for  some 
particular  grace,  and  God  had  never  answered  her 
]>rayers,  at  which  she  fell  into  a  state  of  dangerous  dis- 
couragement. At  last  God  said  to  her,  "  I  have  delayed 
answering  you,  because  you  have  not  sufficient  confi- 
dence in  the  effects  which  My  mercy  produces  in  you. 
You  should  imitate  My  chosen  virgin,  Gertrude,  who 
takes  her  stand  so  firmly  upon  My  providence,  that 
there  is  nothing  she  does  not  hope  from  the  plentitude 
of  My  grace ;  and  hence  it  is  that  I  can  never  refuse 
her  any  thing  she  asks." 

Another  characteristic  exhibition  of  her  spirit  is  to 
be  found  in  the  following  custom.  She  never  would 
choose  her  habits,  or  any  thing  else  in  which  choice 
was  offered  her,  but  she  shut  her  eyes,  put  out  her  hand, 
and  took  what  she  first  touched.  Then  when  she  had 
taken  it,  she  immediately  became  attached  to  it,  as  a 
present  which  had  come  to  her  from  God's  own  hand, 
and  she  conceived  quite  an  affection  for  it,  and  was  no 
longer  indifferent  about  it.  Think  a  little  of  this. 
There  is  that  in  it  which  may  correct  stiffness,  and 
rearrange  our  ideas  of  holy  indifference. 

Here  is  a  picture  of  Gertrude's  life.  One  day,  when 
St.  Matilda  was  singing  in  choir,  she  saw  Jesus  sitting 
upon  a  lofty  throne,  and  Gertrude  walking  up  and 
down  before  Ilim,  without  ever  taking  her  eyes  off  His 
face,  whichever  way  she  walked,  and  at  the  same  time 
she  seemed  busily  occupied  with  a  host  of  exterior 
duties.  While  Matilda  was  gazing  in  astonishment  on 
tlie  vision,  she  heard  our  Lord  say,  "  This  is  the  image 
of  the  life  which  My  dear  Gertrude  leads  before  My 
eyes.  She  walks  always  in  My  presence.  She  allows 
no  rest  to  her  desires,  no  truce  to  her  anxieties,  to  find 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  349 


out  what  is  nearest  and  dearest  to  Mj  heart ;  and  as 
soon  as  she  has  discovered  it,  she  executes  it  with  care 
and  fidelity.  But  the  great  thing  is  that  she  does  not 
rest  upon  it,  but  is  off  again,  always  seeking  some  new 
thing  in  My  will,  in  order  to  redouble  her  zeal  by  new 
actions  and  fresh  practices  of  virtue.  And  thus  her 
whole  life  is  nothing  but  a  linked  chain  of  praises  con- 
secrated to  My  honour  and  glory."  St.  Matilda  thought 
at  once  of  the  besetting  infirmity  of  active  and  zealous 
piety ;  for  she  had  seen  it,  so  she  believed,  in  her  dear 
Gertrude;  and  she  ventured  to  say,  "But,  Lord!  if 
Gertrude's  life  is  so  perfect,  how  is  it  she  cannot  bear 
the  defects  of  others,  and  exaggerates  them  so  much  V 
Our  Lord,  with  admirable  sweetness,  replied,  "It  is 
because  she  cannot  bear  the  least  stain  on  her  own 
heart,  that  she  feels  so  keenly  the  failings  of  her  neigh- 
bours I"  Nearly  a  volume  of  spiritual  commentary 
might  be  written  upon  this. 

Once  more :  let  us  listen  to  the  testimony  of  God 
Himself.  A  holy  man  pressed  God  in  prayer  to  reveal 
to  him  what  it  was  in  which  His  Divine  Majesty  took 
so  much  pleasure  in  His  beloved  Gertrude.  God  vouch- 
safed to  reply  that  it  was  her  liberty  of  heart.  The 
holy  man  having  esteemed  the  excellence  of  this  gift 
much  less  than  it  deserved,  answered  in  surprise : 
"  And  I,  Lord,  thought  that  what  pleased  Thee  most 
in  her  soul,  was  her  perfect  knowledge  of  herself,  and 
the  great  love  to  which,  by  Thy  grace,  she  has  attained." 
"It  is  true,"  replied  our  Lord,  "that  those  are  two 
great  perfections ;  but  this  liberty  of  heart  implies  both 
of  them,  and  it  is  a  precious  gift,  and  a  good  so  perfect 
that  it  is  enough  to  raise  a  soul  to  the  summit  of  per- 
fection.    It  is  this  which  disposes  the  heart  of  Ger- 


350  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


trude  to  receive  every  moment  of  her  life  some  new 
favours  ;  and  it  is  this  which  hinders  her  heart  from 
attaching  itself  to  any  thing  which  can  displease  Me, 
or  dispute  with  Me  the  empire  of  her  love." 

Such  was  the  Saint,  the  special  saint  of  praise  and 
of  devout  desires  !  Oh  that  she  could  be  in  the  Church 
once  more,  as  she  was  in  ages  past,  the  doctress  and 
the  prophetess  of  the  interior  life,  like  Debbora,  who 
sat  beneath  her  palm  in  Mount  Ephraim,  uttering  her 
canticles  and  judging  Israel. 

Having  baid  80  rciich  of  the  failure  of  persons  who 
live  in  the  world  and  aim  at  devotion,  I  cannot  refrain, 
though  it  is  not  necessarily  connected  with  my  subject, 
from  adding  a  few  words  more.  Since  God  sealed  up 
the  garden  of  Eden,  and  hid  it  from  our  curious 
approach,  it  is  said  that  there  has  been  nothing  so  like 
a  paradise  on  earth  as  a  Jesuit  novitiate.  The  world, 
alas  !  cannot  be  turned  into  this.  In  it  men  must  try 
to  lead  angelic  lives,  but  still,  not  in  the  tranquil,  saint- 
infected  air  of  Sant'  Andrea,  but  with  all  the  distrac- 
tions of  noisy  life  around  them.  To  make  a  cloister 
about  us  in  the  world,  is  to  enclose  the  world  along 
with  us  in  our  cells,  and  not  to  see  the  suspicious  com- 
panion we  have  got.  Thus  trying  to  lead  the  lives  of 
religious  in  the  world,  by  a  sort  of  spurious  adapta- 
tion of  monasticism  to  the  world's  circumstances,  is 
one  reason  why  so  many  good  people  fail  in  trying  to 
be  better. 

But  there  is  another  reason  too.  The  contemplative 
life  is  one  thing,  and  the  active  life  another,  and  each 
has  its  own  retinue  and  appurtenances ;  and  con- 
sistency is  the  secret  of  success.  Now,  except  a  few, 
a  very  few  singular  vocations,  devout  people  living  iB 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  351 


the  world  are  called,  as  living  in  the  world,  to  an  active 
life.  Yet  here  is  a  mistake  into  which  they  con\?tantIy 
ftill.  They  make  their  spirituality  to  be  all  interior, 
while  the  whole  of  their  active  life  is  for  the  world, 
and  essentially  worldly,  just  like  methodists,  who  keep 
Sunday  for  religion,  and  the  week-days  for  the  world. 
These  good  people  have  no  Christian  active  life,  and  so 
the  prayers  and  the  church-goings  will  not  keep  the 
peace  with  the  parks  and  the  parties,  and  at  last  devo- 
tion gets  the  worst  of  it,  and  signs  away  its  rights  in 
a  base  concordat.  In  other  words,  dear  reader !  I  sus- 
pect,— I  only  say  suspect,  for  I  have  no  right  to  any 
thing  beyond  a  suspicion  in  spiritual  science, — I  repeat, 
I  suspect  that  we  can  have  no  devout  lives  in  the  world 
without  some  active  tending  of  the  poor !  Visiting  the 
sick,  looking  after  schools,  attending  hospitals,  having 
to  do  with  penitents  and  foundlings,  emigrants  and 
soup-kitchens,  I  suspect  the  secret  of  perfection  in  the 
world,  and  of  perseverance  in  devotion  in  the  world, 
lies  in  these  things.  To  live  interior  contemplative 
lives  in  the  world  for  three  hours  a  day  is  a  glorious 
thing.  But  you  see,  unluckily,  it  hardly  ever  lasts. 
What  now,  if  it  really  be  that  I  am  right,  and  that  the 
reason  of  the  failure  is,  that  to  give  all  your  interior 
life  to  God,  and  all  your  exterior  life  to  the  world,  is 
an  unlawful  division ;  and  that,  if  the  rich  are  to  be 
holy^,  they  must  either  strip  themselves  of  their  riches, 
and  hide  themselves  behind  a  convent  grille,  or  they 
must  labour  with  their  own  hands  for  those  below  them, 
and  make  themselves  companions  of  the  poor  ? 

You  see  your  Christian  life  is  made  up  of  mass,  com- 
munion, meditation,  examen,  some  little  austerities,  arwj 
the  like.    But  all  this  is  more  or  less  oontemplativo,  so 


352  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


long  as  it  stands  by  itself.  It  is  all  most  excellent. 
But  you  are  called  to  something  additional,  to  an  active 
Christian  life,  to  the  apostolate  of  the  rich,  which  con- 
sists in  assiduous  and  affectionate  works  of  mercy  for 
the  poor.  Look  abroad  into  Catholic  countries,  where 
the  middle  class  of  holy  people  so  abounds,  and  is  so 
fruitful  of  good  works,  and  so  graceful  in  its  spiritual 
beauty.  It  looks  as  if  the  secret  there  was  in  this  glo- 
rious activity  for  the  poor.  AVhen  you  come  from 
prayer,  or  from  church,  you  cannot  without  singularity 
carry  your  outward  recollection  into  company,  and 
somehow,  prayer  is  like  a  delicate  bloom  upon  the  soul; 
the  hot  air  of  the  world's  rooms  dissipates  it  speedily. 
But  if  you  come  from  the  gf^rret  or  the  hospital,  the 
workhouse  or  the  cellar,  you  have  a  charmed  atmo- 
sphere around  you,  which  is  a  sort  of  panoply  of  para- 
dise, from  which  the  venomous  arrows  of  the  world 
glance  off  blunted  and  innocuous.  It  wears  well.  It 
cannot  be  smiled  away,  or  talked  of,  or  gossipped  to 
pieces,  like  the  exotic  bloom  of  prayer.  Everywhere, 
where  the  world  is,  there  is  danger  to  the  soul ;  but  the 
gayety,  the  pleasure,  or  the  fashion  can  hardly  be 
named,  which  active  mercy  to  the  poor  cannot  disarm 
of  all  its  perils,  and  even  sanctify.  Depend  upon  it, 
with  you  Avho  live  in  the  world,  mercy  is  but  another 
word  for  perseverance,  and  the  touch  of  the  poor  the 
Real  Presence  of  your  Lord. 

What  a  wonder  it  is  that  God  should  love  men!  In- 
trinsically, what  is  there  in  them  to  love?  If  we  com- 
pare our  own  natural  gifts  with  those  of  an  angel,  how 
miserable  we  appear !  If  we  consider  how  much  more 
faithfully  the  beasts  answer  the  end  of  their  creation 
than  we  do,  of  what  shall  we  be  proud  ?     Moreover, 


PRAISE  AND  DESIRE.  353 


God  has  tried  men  over  and  over  again,  and  they  have 
always  failed  Him,  and  failed  Him  with  every  circum- 
«!tance  of  unamiable  selfishness  which  can  be  conceived. 
There  was,  first  of  all.  Paradise  and  the  Fall.  Every 
one  knows  what  came  of  it.  God  was  matched  against 
an  apple,  and  the  apple  carried  it.  The  Flood  was  an 
awful  judgment;  but  mercy  went  along  with  it.  Yet 
we  soon  find  the  knowledge  of  God  almost  confined  to 
one  family,  and  one  line  of  Patriarchs.  Then  came  the 
Jews.  Job's  patience  is  hardly  a  picture  of  God's 
long-sufi'ering  with  His  people.  He  rewarded,  and 
they  despised  Him.  He  punished,  and  they  hardened 
their  hearts.  He  sent  them  His  Son,  and  they  cruci- 
fied Him ;  and  the  Romans  had  to  go  and  take  away 
their  place  and  nation,  and  burn  up  their  city  and  tern 
pie.  Then  here  is  the  world  since  the  Crucifixion.  Tc 
look  at  it  you  would  say  that  our  dearest  Lord's  Pas- 
sion had  been  a  simple  failure.  So  little  is  the  face  of 
the  world,  or  the  tone  of  the  world,  or  the  ways  of  the 
world  changed.  The  results  of  the  gospel  on  the  world 
8,eem  to  be,  first  a  tinge  of  unusual  romance  in  its  his- 
tory, and  secondly,  a  great  number  of  new  words 
brought  into  its  various  languages  to  express  the  phe- 
nomena and  genius  of  the  Incarnation.  Can  anybody 
say  that  much  else  has  come  of  it,  looking  at  the  world 
at  large  ?  Then  here  are  we  Christians,  a  most  unsatis- 
factory sight  indeed!  How  do  we  treat  our  sacra- 
ments? How  many  of  us  are  serving  our  Crucified 
Lord  generously  and  out  of  love?  Verily,  God's  love 
of  men  is  a  simple  wonder.  Yet  how  Ho  must  love 
them,  seeing  that  He  became  not  an  angel  tor  angels, 
but  He  did  become  a  man  for  men  !  There  is  no  other 
account  of  the  matter,  than  the  Scripture  account  of  it. 
Y  30* 


354  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


It  is  simply  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the  character  of 
God,  as  the  Eternal  Wisdom  says  of  Himself.*  "  I 
was  set  up  from  eternity,  and  of  old  before  the  earth 
was  made.  The  depths  were  not  yet,  and  I  was  con- 
ceived ;  neither  had  the  fountains  of  water  as  yet 
sprung  out.  The  mountains  with  their  huge  bulk  had 
not  as  yet  been  established.  Before  the  hills  I  was 
brought  forth.  He  had  not  yet  made  the  earth,  nor 
the  rivers,  nor  the  poles  of  the  world.  "When  he  pre- 
pared the  heavens,  I  was  present ;  when  with  a  certain 
law  and  compass  He  enclosed  the  depths,  when  He  esta- 
blished the  sky  above,  and  poised  the  fountains  of  the 
waters,  when  he  balanced  the  foundations  of  the  earth. 
I  was  with  Him  forming  all  things  and  was  delighted 
every  day,  playing  before  Him  at  all  times,  playing  in 
the  world,  and  My  delights  were  to  be  with  the  children 
of  men  V* 

But  it  is  a  greater  wonder  still  that  He  lets  men  love 
Him.  AVhere  are  the  words  to  tell  the  privilege  which 
it  is  to  love  the  incomprehensibly  beautiful,  infinitely 
good,  and  immensely  holy  God  ?  One  would  havo 
thought  such  love  as  ours  would  be  but  an  insolent 
profanation ;  and  that  were  we  allowed  to  be  before 
God  with  such  instinctive  love  as  that  of  the  patient 
cattle  or  the  drinking  birds,  it  would  have  been  honour 
enough  for  us.  Yet  if,  by  permission  of  His  inexhaus- 
tible compassions,  we  might  love  Him,  then  surely  it 
must  be  by  blood,  and  pain,  and  suffering,  and  shame, 
and  penance,  and  the  costly  offerings  of  a  terrific  au- 
sterity, and  an  appalling  self-sacrifice.  Ah !  dearest 
Lord  God !  and  so,  in  truth,  it  is ;  but  the  blood  and 

*  Prov.  Tiii 


PRAISK   AND   DESIRE.  355 


the  pain,  the  suffering  and  the  shame,  are  not  ours,  byt 
Hit?  own  !  He  Tveeps  that  we  may  smile  ;  He  bleeds 
that  we  may  be  whole ;  He  is  put  to  shame,  that  we 
may  be  glad  and  joyful ;  He  is  afraid,  and  anxious,  and 
heavy,  and  sweating  blood,  that  we  may  be  at  ease 
about  our  past  sins,  drinking  in  the  sunshine  of  the 
earth,  familiar  with  God,  and  sweetly  confident  about 
eternity.  So  far  does  He  go,  that  not  only  may  wo 
love  Him  most  earnestly,  but  He  has  arranged  all 
things  to  entice  us  into  love.  He  coins  our  very  desires 
into  w^orship ;  and  He  lets  us  love  Him,  and  glorify 
Him,  and  earn  glory  for  ourselves  by  what  would  al- 
most provoke  a  smile,  from  an  unbeliever,  it  looks  so 
like  a  mere  make-believe,  the  artifice  of  a  good-natured 
father,  a  very  child's  play  of  love.  If  all  this  on  earth, 
what  will  He  be,  what  will  He  do  in  heaven  ?  Isaias 
and  St.  Paul  have  both  told  us  how  useless  the  inquiry 
is.  We  must  have  other  eyes  to  see  it  with,  other  ears 
to  hear  it  with,  and  a  far  other  range  of  thought  to 
compass  it  and  take  it  in.  And  will  all  this  one  day 
be  ours  ?  By  the  Blood  of  our  sweet  Jesus,  we  trust 
undoubtingly  it  will.  And  what  ever  have  we  done  for 
it?  Where  is  the  proportion  between  it  and  our  de- 
serts ?  There  is  none,  none,  none.  It  is  all  because 
of  Jesus.  Jesus  is  the  secret  of  every  thing.  Jesus  is 
the  interpretation  of  all  the  secrets  of  God.  What  a 
religion  is  this  !  and  what  a  God !  Oh  let  it  be  told  to 
every  inhabitant  of  the  earth  that  it  is  not  as  he  thought 
it  must  be.  We  may  all  love  God  as  much  as  ever  we 
please,  and  in  as  many  ways  as  we  can  think  of. 
Would  that  angels  might  proclaim  it  every  hour  of  the 
day  and  night,  with  the  sound  of  the  trumpet,  to  all 
the  dwellings  *n  the  four  quarters  of  the  world !     I^ 


350  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


when  they  hear  it,  they  neglect  their  worldly  interests, 
and  become  like  the  men  of  Galilee,  gazers  into  hea- 
ven, it  is  only  what  we  might  expect.  Infinite  permis- 
sion to  love !  Infinite  permission  to  love !  There  ia 
the  creature's  charter.  The  blood  of  a  God  bought  it. 
What  a  religion !     What  a  God  ! 

Do  wonders  end  here  ?  No  !  there  is  a  greater  still. 
It  was  passing  wonder  that  God  should  love  men.  It 
was  more  marvellous  that  He  should  let  men  love  Him. 
But  man  can  outdo  God ;  for  his  is  the  greatest  wonder 
of  all ;  it  is  that  he  does  nci  love  God  when  he  may. 
This  is  hardly  to  be  believed,  though  we  see  it.  Oh, 
if  we  were  not  hardened  by  custom  to  this  fact,  it  would 
breed  in  us  some  such  horror  as  a  cruel  and  savage  par- 
ricide would  do.  It  would  take  our  breath  away.  We 
should  not  know  what  to  make  of  it.  Belief  in  it  would 
only  grow  slowly  into  us,  and  would  stupefy  us  as  it 
grew.  But  to  forget  God  is  the  order  of  things,  and 
we  hardly  notice  the  phenomenon  at  all.  Alas  !  if  we 
could  see  it  altogether  as  faith  would  have  us  see  it,  we 
should  long  for  tears  of  blood  to  wash  away  our  infa- 
my !  And  what  can  be  said  to  make  men  love  God, 
which  is  one  half  as  strong  as  what  God  has  actually 
done  for  them  ?  His  mercy  is  so  eloquent.  His  bounty 
so  touching.  His  indulgence  so  persuasive,  that  if  He 
has  failed  to  win,  why  need  men  trouble  themselves  to 
proclaim  His  love  ?  This  is  what  St.  Paul  must  have 
meant  when  he  talked  about  the  foolishness  of  preach- 
ing. Christ  crucified  was  Himself  the  sermon  and  the 
preacher,  what  need  of  more?  It  was  foolishness. 
Only  in  Ilis  love  again  God  let  us  do  this ;  we  are  al- 
ways meeting  love  and  running  against  it  at  every  turn ; 
He  allowed  us  to  take  the  word's  of  His  covenant  into 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  357 


our  mouths,  and  show  our  little  love  of  Him  by  telling 
others  His  great  love  of  us.  And  He  showed  His  love 
again  by  letting  the  conquest  of  the  world  depend  upon 
this  foolishness  of  preaching.  But  you  and  I  love 
Hira !  Well!  and  this  is  another  wonder;  *br  how 
come  we  to  do  so,  when  so  many  more  around  us  do 
not  ?  It  is  simply  His  own  gift,  simply  grace.  Here 
is  Jesus  again.  He  taught  us  how  to  love,  and  seeing 
what  unapt  pupils  we  were,  He  took  some  of  His  own 
love  out  of  His  Sacred  Heart,  and  put  it  into  ours,  that 
we  might  lore  God  with  it.  And  all  our  share  in  the 
matter  is  that  we  have  left  the  lamp  untrimmed,  and 
caused  the  fire  to  burn  far  duller  than  it  did  before.  It 
almost  seems  as  if  He  purposely  chose  those  who  were 
least  capable  of  loving  Him.  You  and  I  must  surely 
feel  this.  We  could  point  to  scores  who  do  not  love 
Him ;  and  yet  are  a  thousand  times  nobler  and  more 
generous  of  heart  than  wg  are,  and  would  have  made 
far  finer  characters. 

How  miserable  we  are  !  Why  did  not  God  call  other 
souls  out  of  nothing  that  would  have  loved  Him  glori- 
ously, and  not  been  the  mean  things  that  we  are  ?  Ho 
loved  us,  our  souls,  ourselves.  He  chose  us  with  an 
eternal  choice,  gave  us  an  eternal  preference,  and  loved 
us  with  an  everlasting  love.  Why  ?  There  is  no  an- 
swering the  question.  Simply,  He  loved  us,  and  so  He 
chose  us.  Then  what  are  we  to  do  with  this  world, 
which  will  not  love  God  ?  Ah !  there  is  the  question. 
We  may  well  have  our  heads  and  hearts  full  of  all  man- 
ner of  wild  heroic  schemes  for  His  love  and  honour 
But  it  chafes  us.  What  can  we  do  ?  What  is  the 
nearest  thing  to  infinite  which  we  can  attempt  ?  How 
can  we  be  in  all  quarters  of  the  world  at  once  ?    Here 


858  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


is  an  answer ;  not  equal  to  the  necessity,  1  admit ;  still 
it  is  an  answer.     By  love  and  the  spirit  of  reparation. 

Oh,  for  the  love  of  Jesus,  do  something !  Can  you 
see  Divine  Love  begging  from  heart  to  heart,  and  not 
be  touched  by  the  piteousness  of  His  poverty  1  There 
is  no  medicant  on  earth  so  spurned  as  He  vrho  made  it 
of  old,  and  supports  it  now.  Make  one  heart  give  Ilim 
an  alms,  in  honour  of  the  Father  ;  make  reparation  for 
another  heart's  denial,  in  honour  of  the  Son  ;  and  grow 
in  love  yourself,  in  honour  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Do  we 
not  see  that  a  man  hardly  ever  makes  up  his  mind  to  a 
thing,  but  he  does  it?  Few  men  miss  their  end  when 
they  are  obstinately  bent  on  gaining  it.  I  wonder  what 
would  take  place,  if  a  few  of  us  would  do  this,  if  we 
were  to  say  resolutely,  I  am  determined  to  have  God 
better  loved  in  the  world.  I  will  not  come  into  the 
world  for  nothing.  Somebody  shall  love  God  the  more 
for  my  having  been  created.  If  it  be  ever  so  little.  Di- 
vine Love  shall  have  been  increased  in  the  world  by 
me.  Have  we  ever  made  such  a  determination  ?  Let 
us  make  it  now.  I  have  huge  faith  in  it.  "When  do 
we  begin  ?  To-day.  Very  well.  Now  we  have  a  de- 
finite work  before  us,  a  work  -which  shall  he  done.  Dear 
Majesty  of  God!  By  the  Heart  of  Jesus,  we  will  do 
something  great  and  generous  for  Thee ! 

It  would  be  a  waste  of  words  to  show  how  the  prac- 
tice of  Praise  and  Desire  would  assist  us  here,  both  in 
increasing  our  own  love  of  God,  and  making  reparation 
to  Him  for  others'  want  of  love.  But  when  we  have 
done  all,  it  seems  so  little,  that  we  may  well  fall  back 
upon  our  doctrine  and  practice  of  oblation,  in  order  to 
supply  for  our  deficiency.  Where  do  we  naturally 
turn  ?    To  Mary,  the  Immaculate  Mother  of  God.  to 


PRAISE   AND    DESIRE.  359 


her  who  was  not  only  conceived  without  sin,  but  was 
never  so  much  as  included  in  the  decree  which  con- 
cerned sin.  We  should  never  know  God  as  well  as  we 
do,  if  it  were  not  for  Mary.  She  reflects  upon  us  the 
magnificence  of  God.  Her  dignity  is  the  highest  that 
can  be,  and  St.  Thomas  tells  us,  even  within  the  com- 
pass of  omnipotence.  She  is  a  trophy  of  Divine  Love, 
whereon  the  Three  Blessed  Persons  have  hung  all  their 
gifts  and  prerogatives  which  a  mere  creature  is  capable 
of  receiving.  She  is  clad  from  head  to  foot  in  the  sur- 
passing beauty  of  God.  lie  has  communicated  Him- 
self to  her  in  a  manner  which  we  dare  not  put  into 
words.  The  Church  calls  her  by  names  that  startle  us, 
as  if  she  had  borrowed  the  titles  of  the  Most  High,  and 
claimed  common  property  in  His  attributes.  We  are 
bidden  to  speak  of  her  in  words  vrhich  seem  to  belong 
to  the  Eternal  Uncreated  Wisdom  of  the  Father.  The 
Son  has  transferred  to  the  Mother  what  is  His.  She  is 
more  than  all  creation  beside,  more  worthy,  more  beau- 
tiful, more  mighty,  more  loved  of  God.  Thus  she  is 
before  God  the  unspeakable  "  hymn  which  befits  Him 
in  Sion."  She  is  all  praise,  all  thanksgiving.  She  is 
the  repose  of  the  Creator's  merciful  complacency,  the 
plenitude  of  His  delighted  benediction.  With  her  He 
is  well  pleased.  Thus  is  Mary's  praise  an  almost 
boundless  worship  which  we  can  ofier  to  Him.  In  old 
times  the  servants  of  God  made  their  Benedicite  of  seas 
and  mountains,  birds  and  fishes,  heat  and  cold,  wells 
and  green  things,  cattle  and  men.  They  called  upon 
them  all  to  praise,  exalt,  and  superexalt  the  glory  of 
the  good  Creator.  But  Mary  is  the  Christian's  Bene- 
dicite. The  Church  teaches  us  to  thank  in  strains  of 
ardent  love  the  Most  Holy  a-nd  Undivided  Trinity  for 


360  PRAISE   AND   DESIRE. 


the  gifts  and  graces  of  Mary,  and  has  indulgenced  se- 
veral devotions  to  this  effect.  See  what  this  implies. 
Enter  into  the  Spirit  of  the  Church.  Remember,  Mary 
is  the  Christian's  Benedicite. 

Sweet  praise  of  Mary !  Can  any  thing  go  beyond  it  ? 
Dear  Mother,  what  a  joy  to  us  to  know  thou  art  such 
praise  to  God!  Sweet  praise,  beautiful  praise,  the 
praise  of  the  sinless !  Can  any  thing  go  beyond  it? 
Yes  !  Mother !  and  none  knoweth  this  so  well  as  thou 
dost!  There  was*  a  cedar  in  Libanus,  with  fair 
branches,  and  full  of  leaves,  of  a  high  stature,  and  his 
top  was  elevated  among  the  thick  boughs.  The  waters 
nourished  him,  the  deep  set  him  up  on  high  ;  the 
streams  thereof  ran  round  about  his  roots,  and  it  sent 
forth  its  rivulets  to  all  the  trees  of  the  country.  There- 
fore was  his  height  exalted  above  all  the  trees  of  the 
the  country,  and  his  branches  were  multiplied,  and  his 
boughs  were  elevated  because  of  many  waters.  And 
when  he  had  spread  forth  his  shadow,  all  the  fowls  of 
the  air  made  their  nests  in  his  boughs,  and  all  the 
beasts  of  the  forest  brought  forth  their  young  under 
his  branches,  and  the  assembly  of  many  nations  d^velt 
under  his  shadow.  And  he  was  most  beautiful  for  his 
greatness,  and  for  the  spreading  of  his  branches ;  for 
his  root  was  near  great  waters.  The  cedars  in  the 
paradise  of  God  were  not  higher  than  he ;  the  fir-tree? 
did  not  equal  his  top,  neither  were  the  plane-trees  to  be 
compared  with  him  for  branches.  No  trees  in  the  para- 
dise of  God  were  like  him  in  his  beauty.  See  how 
sweetly  the  prophet  speaks  of  the  Sacred  Humanity  Of 
Jesus.     It  is  to  Him  incomparably  more  than  to  our 

*  Kzekiel  xxxi. 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  361 


dearest  Mother  that  the  Father  saith,  "  Show  Me  Thy 
fuce  ;  let  Thy  voice  sound  in  My  ears  ;  for  Thy  voice 
is  sweet,  and  Thy  face  comely."*  And,  oh,  the  glory 
of  Mary!  His  voice  sounds  like  hers,  and  His  face 
wears  the  lineaments  of  hers !  But  who  can  tell  the 
praise  the  voice  of  Jesus  utters  to  the  Majesty  of  God  ? 
When  an  angel  sang  but  a  moment  to  St.  Francis,  the 
saint  felt  he  must  have  died  of  sweetness,  had  the  music 
been  prolonged  an  instant  more ;  what  then  must  be 
the  voice  of  our  Lord's  most  dear  Humanity  ?  Oh, 
what  a  joy  it  is  to  kneel  in  silent  praise,  hushed  with 
the  sweet  thought  of  all  that  divine,  unutterable  praise 
which  the  voice  of  Jesus  is  uttering  to  God  I  Oh,  the 
consolation  that  God  is  now  at  least  receiving  praise, 
the  value  of  which  is  infinite,  because  of  the  blessed 
union  of  the  Word  with  that  Sacred  Humanity  ! 

But  saints  alone  can  rightly  speak  of  these  things. 
Let  it  be  St.  Francis  of  Sales. f  "  When  we  have  lis- 
tened to  the  united  praises  which  all  creatures  render 
their  Creator,  and  then  hear  the  homage  and  benedic- 
tion of  the  Eternal  Son,  we  discover  therein  an  infinite 
value  and  worth.  We  wake  as  if  from  a  profound 
sleep,  and  enchanted  by  the  magical  sounds  of  this 
heavenly  music,  we  exclaim,  'It  is  the  voice  of  the 
sovereign  object  of  my  love  which  strikes  my  ears ;  in 
comparison  of  this  one  voice,  the  harmony  of  all  others 
is  but  a  melancholy  silence  1%  Behold,  He  cometh 
leaping  upon  the  mountains,  skipping  over  the  hills  ;' 
that  is,  elevating  far  above  the  benedictions  of  all  crea- 
tures the  homage  He  renders  His  Eternal  Father.  His 
all-seeing  eye  penetrates  more  deeply  than  any  other 

♦  Cant.  ii.  14.  f  Amour  de  Dicu,  v.  xi.  X  Cant.  ii.  8. 

SI 


562  PRAISE    AND   DESIRE. 


the  infinite,  uncreated  beauty  of  the  Divine  Object  II<i 
desires  to  glorify.  The  features  which  mark  His  bound- 
less love  are  thus  described  in  the  Canticles:  Behold, 
He  standeth  behind  our  wall,  and  clothes  Himself  with 
His  Sacred  Humanity.  He  renders  himself  visible 
through  His  wounds  and  bleeding  side,  looking  through 
these  apertures  as  through  the  windows  and  through 
the  lattices.  We  may  consider  divine  love  residing  in 
the  heart  of  our  Redeemer  as  a  sovereign  seated  on 
his  throne.  Through  His  wounded  side  it  beholds  the 
hearts  of  the  children  of  men,  never  losing  sight  of  them. 
As  those  who  look  through  a  lattice  see  without  being 
seen,  so  the  love  of  this  Divine  Heart,  which  may  be 
called  the  Heart  of  Divine  love,  being  in  reality  its 
centre,  incessantly  considers  all  that  passes  in  ours. 
As  for  us,  we  do  not  see  Jesus  Christ  distinctly ;  we 
merely  catch  a  glimpse  of  Him,  for  could  we  behold 
Him  as  He  is  in  Himself,  mortal  beings  as  we  are,  we 
should  expire  for  love  of  that  infinite  goodness  which 
prompted  Him  to  die  for  love  of  us,  and  which  would 
induce  Him  to  sacrifice  His  life  for  us  again,  if  He  were 
still  liable  to  mortality.  Could  we  hear  the  canticle 
which  this  Divine  Heart  sings  in  honour  of  the  Father, 
we  should  endeavour  to  burst  our  ties  and  soar  to  hea- 
ven," that  we  might  listen  to  it  for  ever.  This  God  of 
charity  does  not  deprive  us  of  this  advantage.  He  in- 
vites us  to  unite  ourselves  to  Him,  saying,  'Arise, 
make  haste  to  fly  to  Me,  My  love.  My  dove,  my  beau- 
tiful one.'*  Come  to  this  heavenly  abode,  where  every 
thing  breathes  supereminent  bliss,  where  nothing  is 
heard  but  canticles  of  benediction  and  notes  of  joy. 

*  Cant.  ii.  10. 


PRAISE   AND   DESIRE.  S63 


The  melancholy  turtle-dove  here  changes  her  lamenta- 
tions to  the  sweet  strains  of  happiness.  Come  then,  My 
love,  My  beautiful  one,  behold  Me  through  My  woands  ; 
they  are  the  lattices  through  which  I  see  you.  My  dove 
in  the  clefts  of  the  rock,  come  and  contemplate  My 
heart  through  the  opening  in  My  bleeding  side,  made 
when  My  house  was  so  piteously  ruined  on  the  cross. 
Come  and  show  thy  face.  Let  thy  voice  sound  in  My 
ears.  Let  it  be  united  to  Mine,  and  then  thy  voice  will 
be  sweet,  and  thy  face  comely.  What  transports  of 
delight  shall  we  not  experience,  when  our  voices,  min- 
gling with  and  made  one  with  our  Saviour's,  shall  share 
in  the  infinite  sweetness  of  those  praises  which  the  well- 
beloved  Son  renders  to  His  Eternal  Father." 

Can  the  Majesty  of  God  need  more  than  this  ?  Shall 
not  the  aspirations  of  our  wildest  flights  of  love  repose 
delighted  and  contented  here  ?  'No  !  not  even  here,  not 
even  with  the  praise  of  our  dearest  Lord's  Sacred  Hu- 
manity. Love  can  still  draw  a  distinction.  The  human 
actions  of  Jesus,  such  as  this  sweet  praise,  have  indeed 
an  infinite  value,  because  of  His  Divine  Person.  But 
they  are  not  infinite  in  themselves.  Here  then  is  some- 
thing in  the  praise  which  falls  short  of  the  Majesty  it 
praises.  We  must  mount  higher  still,  until  we  rest  in 
that  perfect,  infinite,  sovereign  praise,  w4iich  the  Di- 
vinity offers  to  Himself.  0  my  God  !  I  bless  Thee  that 
Thou  art  so  great  that  neither  Mary,  nor  even  the  Sacred 
Humanity  of  Jesus,  can  praise  Thee  as  Thou  shouldest 
be  praised ;  and  I  bless  Thee  too  for  that  infinite,  in- 
cessant, sufficient  praise  of  Thine  own  self,  the  thought 
of  which  by  Thy  grace  is  my  greatest  contentment  upon 
earth  1 

But  we  must  again  call  in  a  saint  to  speak.     He 


364  PRAISE   AND    DESIRE. 


shall  sum  up  all  I  have  tried  to  say  of  Praise  and  of 
Desire,  of  Complacency  and  of  Benevolence.*  *'  Who 
can  comprehend  the  sentiments  of  joy  and  complacency 
which  animate  a  soul,  when  she  sees  that  God  is  in- 
finitely glorified  by  the  praise  He  gives  Himself? 
But  this  complacency  gives  birth  to  a  new  desire. 
We  long  to  glorify  God  for  the  power  He  possesses  of 
worthily  honouring  himself.  We  wish  to  annihilate 
our  whole  being  to  return  Him  thanks  for  it.  We 
call  anew  to  our  assistance  all  creatures  to  bless  Him, 
because  He  gives  Himself  an  infinite  glory  which  He 
can  only  receive  from  Himself.  Thus,  pleasure  at 
seeing  God  worthily  praised,  and  an  incessantly  in- 
creasing desire  to  glorify  Him,  keep  the  heart,  as  it 
were,  suspended  between  complacency  and  benevolence. 
It  is  continually  wavering  between  these  two  senti- 
ments, and  always  penetrating  more  deeply  into  the 
exhaustless  sweets  of  love.  It  then  reunites  all  its 
powers  to  praise  God,  and  to  thank  Him  that  He  can 
only  be  adequately  glorified  by  Himself.  For  though 
the  devout  soul,  in  the  first  ardent  efi'usions  of  her 
love,  aspired  to  nothing  less  than  to  ofier  her  God  a 
homage  worthy  of  His  greatness,  she  afterward  ac- 
knowledges that  she  had  deceived  herself,  and  declares 
that  she  would  regret  possessing  the  power  to  praise 
Him  worthily.  She  prefers  to  all  her  desires  the 
humble  feeling  of  complacency,  which  she  derives  from 
seeing  that  God  whom  alone  she  loves,  being  infinitely 
worthy  of  homage,  must  be  extolled  in  an  infinite 
manner,  in  order  to  be  praised  as  He  deserves,  and 
that  He  can  only  be  thus  glorified  by  Himself.     After 

*  St.  Francis,  Amour  de  Dieu,  t.  cap.  xHt. 


PRAISE    AND    DESIRE.  365 


jhls  <ivo\Yal,  the  heart,  unable  to  proceed,  can  only 
admire,  and  say  Avith  the  prophet,  'A  hymn,  0  God, 
becometh  Thee  in  Sion!'  Isaias  represents  the  sera- 
phim, singing  over  and  over  again  tlie  same  canticle, 
with  their  face  and  feet  vailed,  to  show  that  they  can 
neither  know  God  perfectly,  nor  serve  Ilim  worthily. 
Feet,  which  support  man,  mark  actions  and  services. 
However,  notwithstanding  their  impotence  which  they 
unhesitatingly  acknowledge,  they  always  fly  by  the 
help  of  two  wings ;  that  is,  the  sentiments  of  compla- 
cency and  benevolence  keep  them  in  continual  motion. 
But  this  motion  is  not  accompanied  with  agitation  or 
disquietude,  and  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  calm 
and  peaceful  love  by  which  they  repose  in  God. 

"  The  human  heart  is  always  agitated,  when  the 
movement  by  which  it  is  incessantly  dilated  and  com- 
pressed happens  to  be  restrained;  and  it  is  most  tran- 
quil when  this  movement  meets  with  no  obstacle  or 
resistance.  In  other  words,  its  peace  and  calm  depend 
on  its  movement.  So  it  is  with  the  seraphim  and  all 
who  love  God.  Their  love  finds  repose  in  the  double 
and  incessant  movement  of  complacency  and  benevo- 
lence. By  the  first  they  attract,  and,  if  we  may  use 
the  expression,  restrain  the  Almighty  within  the  limits 
of  their  heart.  By  the  second,  they  dilate  their  hearts 
in  God.  In  this  state,  a  heart  inflamed  with  love, 
though  perfectly  tranquil,  still  experiences  two  kinds 
of  movement.  It  desires  to  see  the  wonderful  effects 
of  God's  infinite  goodness,  and  then  it  wishes  to  render 
Ilim  a  worthy  homage.  But  these  two  desires  are  the 
two  wings  which  the  seraphim  cannot  use.  One  they 
fold  on  their  face,  as  if  to  acknowledge  that  God  is 
infinite  and  beyond  the  reach  of  their  comprehension. 
3l# 


366  PRAISE    AND    DESIRE. 


The  other  they  fold  on  their  feet,  as  if  to  express  that 
they  can  do  nothing  worthy  of  the  greatness  and  ma- 
jesty of  God.  Love,  then,  retains  only  two  wings  of 
complacency  and  benevolence,  which  it  employs  to  soar 
to  the  bosom  of  God,  to  absorb  and  engulf  itself  more 
and  more  deeply  in  the  fathomless  abyss  of  His  infi- 
nite perfections." 

Ah  !  dearest  Lord !  why  is  it  we  think  of  any  thing 
but  this  ?  Why  is  it  the  world  does  not  always  seem 
little  to  us,  as  at  this  hour,  and  life  a  weariness,  and 
death  a  gain?  Why  do  our  hearts  leap  up  at  other 
things  besides  the  thought  of  God  ?  Why  art  not  Thou 
our  only  sweetness,  who  art,  as  we  have  ever  found 
Thee,  so  passing  sweet?  Why  art  Thou  not  our  only 
rest,  our  choicest  recreation,  who  art  our  Father, 
Brother,  and  our  God?  Why  wilt  Thou  not  take  pity 
on  our  helplessness,  and  Touch  us  with  Thy  fire,  and 
make  us  serve  Thee  out  of  love  ?  Ah  !  Jesus,  we  shall 
have  reason  to  complain  of  Thee  for  being  jio  lovely, 
if  Thou  wilt  not  give  us  love ! 


CHAPTEK  IX. 


|iurpt0rt{. 


T  is  incredible  how  dear  the  glory 
of  God  becomes  to  those  who  are 
continually  on  the  lookqut  for  it. 
The  very  search  gives  them  new 
senses  whereby  they  can  find  it, 
while  daily  increasing  love  is  per- 
petually sharpening  their  discern- 
ment. "The  earth  is  full  of  Thy 
glory."  What  a  joy  to  a  loving 
heart!  But  it  is  not  enough  that  heaven 
has  overflowed,  and  that  earth  is  filled 
with  the  blessed  inundation  of  Ilis 
glory.  We  would  fain  there  should  not 
be  a  nook  of  creation  which  is  not  full 
of  it.  Yet  there  i&  one  place  where  that  glory 
seems  frustrated,  one  place  from  which  there 
rises  neither  plaint  of  prayer,  nor  joy  of 
praise,  nor  blessing  of  thanks,  nor  aspiration 
of  desire.  It  is  the  home  of  those  who  have  had  their 
trial  and  lost  their  cause,  and  with  it  have  lost  God 
for  ever.  Here  is  grace  which  has  not  borne  fruit,  or 
whose  fruits  have  rotted  upon  the  tree.  Here  are  sa- 
craments which  have  come  to  nought.     The  cross  has 

S67 


368  PURGATORY. 


been  a  failure,  and  God's  loving  purposes  have  been 
successfully  resisted  and  direfully  overthrown.  Yet  it 
is  of  faith  that  God's  harvest  of  glory  out  of  that  un- 
utterable gloom  is  immense,  for  the  lost  soul  rs  as  much 
an  unwilling  worship  of  Ilis  justice,  as  the  converted 
soul  is  a  willing  worship  of  His  love.  Neither  is 
Jesus  without  His  own  interests  there  ;  for  the  pains, 
unspeakable  as  they  are,  nay,  even  in  the  bare  thought 
of  them  intolerable,  are  less  thai)  the  merit  of  sin,  less 
than  the  righteous  measure  of  punishment,  and  are  so 
because  of  Him.  The  Precious  Blood,  in  some  sense, 
has  reached  even  there.  Neither  is  that  horrible  place 
without  a  most  blessed  result  on  the  salvation  of  many 
souls,  through  the  holy  and  salutary  fear  which  it 
breeds  in  them,  and  the  loose  and  low  notions  of  God 
which  it  corrects  in  the  unthinking.  When  our  Lord 
showed  Sister  Francosca  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  a 
Spanish  Carmelitess,  the  loss  of  a  soul,  and  several 
times  in  a  vision  compelled  her  positively  to  study  the 
separate  tortures  of  that  place.  He  upbraided  her  for 
weeping:  "Francesca!  why  weepest  thou?"  She  fell 
prostrate  at  His  sacred  feet,  and  said,  "  Lord  !  for  the 
damnation  of  that  soul,  and  the  manner  in  which  it 
has  been  damned.''  He  vouchsafed  to  reply,  "Daugh- 
ter! it  hath  chosen  to  damn  itself;  I  have  given  it  many 
helps  of  grace  that  it  might  be  saved,  but  it  would  not 
profit  by  them.  I  am  pleased  with  your  compassion, 
but  I  would  have  you  rather  love  My  justice."  And 
another  time,  when  she  was  compelled  to  fix  her  gaze 
upon  thos«  pains,  the  angels  said  to  her,  "0  Francesca  1 
strive  hard  after  the  holy  fear  of  God  I"  Who  can 
doubt  that  there  are  at  this  hour  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  in  the  bliss  of  heaven,  vfho  never  would 


PURGATORY.  3(59 


have  been  there  if  there  had  been  no  hell.  Alas  for 
the  reproach  it  is  to  the  unloving  hearts  of  men!  but 
after  all,  the  Cross  of  Christ  has  had  no  better  help  on 
earth  than  the  unbearable  fire  of  hell. 

Verily  it  is  well  for  our  own  sakes,  to  think  some- 
times of  that  horrid  place  I  As  truly  as  fair  France 
lies  across  the  Channel,  as  truly  as  the  sun  is  shining 
on  the  white  walls,  and  gay  bridges,  and  bright  gar- 
dens, and  many-storied  palaces  of  its  beautiful  capital, 
as  truly  as  that  thousands  of  men  and  women  there  are, 
living  real  lives  and  fulfilling  various  destinies,  so  truly 
is  there  such  a  place  as  hell,  all  alive  this  hour  with 
the  multitudinous  life  of  countless  agonies,  and  innu- 
merable gradations  of  despair.  Save  the  blessed  in 
heaven,  none  live  so  keen  or  conscious  a  life  as  those 
millions  of  ruined  souls.  It  is  not  impossible  that  we 
may  go  there  too.  It  is  not  impossible  that  we  may 
have  sent  some  there  already.  When  we  pass  along 
the  streets,  we  must  often  see  those  who  will  inhabit 
there  for  ever.  There  are  some  there  now,  who  were 
not  there  an  hour  ago.  There  are  some  now  in  the 
green  fields,  or  in  the  busy  towns,  on  comfortable 
beds,  or  on  the  sunshiny  seas,  who  in  another  hour 
perhaps  will  have  gone  there.  This  is  a  dreadfully 
real  truth. 

But  what  if  more  than  all  this  be  true  ?  What  if 
there  was  once  a  day  when  we  should  have  gone 
thither  if  we  had  died?  What  if  this  hour  it  holds 
mere  boys  and  girls,  who  have  sinned  far  less  than  we 
have  done,  nay,  perhaps,  have  sinned  but  once,  while 
we  have  sinned  a  thousand  times  ?  Oh,  but  we  may 
humble  ourselves  still  more.  How  long  should  we 
persevere  in  serving  God,  if  we  were  certified  there 
Z 


370  PURGATORY. 


was  no  hell  ?  Should  we  have  left  our  sintt,  if  it  had 
not  been  for  hell  ?  Oh,  what  a  thing  it  is  to  be  upon 
this  good  earth,  and  surrounded  by  all  this  hopeful 
life,  when  we  have  actually  by  our  own  hand  and  eye, 
word  and  thought,  and  evil  painstaking,  worked  out 
our  right  and  title  to  all  this  everlasting  wo.  Ah ! 
just  as  the  mist  rises  from  the  barren  sea,  where  the 
corn  grows  not  and  the  vines  can  bear  no  fruit,  and 
forms  the  clouds  which  are  to  fall  in  fertilizing  showers 
over  hill  and  dale,  so  from  those  broad  seas  of  fire  and 
curse,  the  Divine  Compassion  rises  like  a  cloud,  to  pour 
down  streams  of  grace  upon  the  souls  of  living  men. 
Let  no  one  ever  turn  away  from  the  sight  of  hell,  lest, 
by  little  and  by  little  and  by  very  little,  a  good  opinion 
of  himself  should  grow  up  within  his  soul,  and  send 
him  to  that  drear  banishment  at  last.  Indeed  it  is 
good,  very  good,  to  think  of  hell,  and  of  that  kind 
wonder,  that  we  are  not  already  there  this  hour.  Nay, 
do  not  start, — what  you  see  is  indeed  the  white  light 
of  earth's  sun  ;  fear  not ;  that  sound, — it  is  the  wind 
that  waves  the  branches  of  the  wood ;  be  assured  ;  your 
eyes  do  not  deceive  you,  those  are  the  village  spires  that 
are  sleeping  in  the  misty,  quiet  landscape ;  all  is  right 
so  far.  We  are  here,  and  we  are  free ;  but  we  ought 
to  have  been, — there,  and  slaves  ! 

But  if  we  give  ourselves  up  to  seek  and  find  God's 
glory,  and  to  make  this  our  one  occupation  upon  earth, 
must  we  go  down  to  hell,  and  learn  to  rejoice  with 
those  awful  attributes  of  God  which  are  satisfied  with 
that  terrific  sacrifice  ?  No  !  God  be  praised !  this  is 
no  part  of  our  devotion.  We  are  creatures  of  hope 
and  love.  We  go  where  God's  glory  is  possible  to  us, 
where  we  can  help  it,  and  advance  its  interests ;  or  if 


PURGATORY.  •    371 

ITC  rise  into  the  impossible,  it  is  only  that  love  has 
carried  us  away  into  the  silent  eloquence  of  childlike 
extravagant  desire.  We  have  nothing  to  do  v^ith  hell. 
We  have  seen  that  of  our  three  things,  the  glory  of  God, 
the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the  salvation  of  souls,  the 
two  first  may  be  found  even  there.  But  they*  are  not 
there  in  ways  which  concern  us ;  so  reflections  upon 
hell  are  not  necessary  to  my  plan.  Enough  for  us 
that  there  is  such  a  place,  and  that  at  this  hour  it  is 
full  of  souls,  and  that  more  and  more  are  ever  stream- 
ing into  it,  and  that  its  frightful  occupations  are  what 
they  are,  and  that  there  is  not  one  of  us  who  is  not 
running  a  risk,  or  of  whom  it  is  not  possible,  that  that 
place  may  be  his  heritage  and  portion  for  ever.  They 
who  serve  Jesus  out  of  love  do  not  on  thai  account 
forget  these  things.  Nay,  they  remember  them  the 
more,  because  they  love  so  much. 

But  although  we  are  mercifully  freed  from  the 
necessity  of  descending  into  hell  to  seek  and  promote 
the  interests  of  Jesus,  it  is  far  from  being  so  with  pur- 
gatory. If  heaven  and  earth  are  full  of  the  glory  of 
God,  so  also  is  that  most  melancholy,  yet  most  inte- 
resting land,  where  the  prisoners  of  hope  are  detained 
by  their  Saviour's  loving  justice  from  the  Beatific 
Vision  ;  and  if  we  can  advance  the  interests  of  Jesus  on 
earth  and  in  heaven,  I  may  almost  venture  to  say  that 
we  can  do  still  more  in  purgatory.  And  what  I  am 
endeavouring  to  show  you  in  this  treatise,  is,  how  you 
may  help  God  by  prayer,  and  the  practices  of  devotion, 
whatever  your  occupation  and  calling  may  be  ;  and  all 
these  practices  apply  especially  to  purgatory.  For 
although  some  theologians  say,  that  in  spite  of  the  holy 
fouls  placing  no  obstacle  in  the  way,  still  the  efi'ect  of 


372  .  PURGATORY. 


prayer  for  them  is  not  infallible,  nevertheless  it  ia 
much  more  certain  than  the  eflFect  of  prayer  for  the 
conversion  of  sinners  upon  earth,  where  it  is  so  often 
frustrated  by  their  perversity  and  evil  dispositions. 
Anyhow  what  I  have  wanted  to  show  has  been  this, 
that  each  of  us,  without  aiming  beyond. our  grace, 
without  austerities  for  which  we  have  not  courage, 
without  supernatural  gifts  to  which  we  lay  no  claim, 
may  by  simple  affectionateness  and  the  practices  of 
*ound  catholic  devotion  do  great  things,  things  so 
«reat  that  they  seem  incredible,  for  the  glory  of  God, 
the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the  good  of  souls.  I  should 
therefore  be  leaving  my  subject  very  incomplete  if  I 
did  not  consider  at  some  length  devotion  to  the  Holy 
Souls  in  Purgatory ;  and  I  will  treat,  not  so  much  of 
particular  practices  of  it,  which  are  to  be  found  in  the 
ordinary  manuals,  as  of  the  spirit  of  the  devotion 
itself. 

Rosignoli,  in  his  Wonders  of  God  in  Purgatory,* 
which  he  wrote  at  the  request  of  the  Blessed  Sebastian 
Valfre,  of  the  Turin  Oratory,  relates  from  the  Domini- 
can annals  an  interesting  dispute  between  two  good 
friars  as  to  the  respective  merits  of  devotion  for  the 
conversion  of  sinners  and  devotion  for  the  Holy  Souls. 
Fra.  Bertrando,  was  the  great  advocate  of  poor  sin- 
ners, constiintly  said  mass  for  them,  and  offered  up  all 
his  prayers  and  penances  to  obtain  for  them  the  grace 
of  conversion.  "Sinners,''  he  said,  "without  grace 
are  in  a  state  of  perdition.  Evil  spirits  are  conti- 
nually laying  snares  for  them,  to  deprive  them  of  the 
Beatific  Vision,  and  to  carry  them  off  to  eternal  tor- 


*  Opere  i.  710. 


PUllGATORY.  373 


ments.  Our  Blessed  Lord  came  down  from  heaven, 
and  died  a  most  painful  death  for  them.  What  can  be 
a  higher  work  than  to  imitate  Ilim,  and  to  co-operate 
with  Ilim  in  the  salvation  of  souls  ?  When  a  soul  is 
lost,  the  price  of  its  redemption  is  lost  also.  Now  the 
eouls  in  purgatory  are  safe.  They  arc  sure  of  their 
eternal  salvation.  It  is  most  true  that  they  are 
plunged  into  a  sea  of  sorrows ;  but  they  are  sure  to 
come  out  at  last.  They  are  the  friends  of  God ;  whereas 
sinners  are  His  enemies,  and  to  be  God's  enemy  is  the 
greatest  misery  in  creation.'^ 

Fra.  Benedetto  was  an  equally  enthusiastic  advocate 
of  the  suffering  souls.  He  offered  all  his  free  masses 
for  them,  as  well  as  his  prayers  and  penances.  "  Sin- 
ners,'' he  said,  "  were  bound  with  the  chains  of  their 
own  will.  They  could  leave  off  sinning  if  they  pleased. 
The  yoke  was  of  their  own  choosing.  Whereas,  the 
dead  were  tied  hand  and  foot  against  their  own  will  in 
the  most  atrocious  sufferings.  *  Now  come,  dear  Fra. 
Bertrando,  tell  me — Suppose  there  were  two  beggars, 
one  well  and  strong,  who  could  use  his  hands,  and 
work  if  he  liked,  but  chose  to  suffer  poverty  rather 
than  part  with  the  sweets  of  idleness ;  and  the  other 
sick,  and  maimed,  and  helpless,  who,  in  his  piteous 
condition,  could  do  nothing  but  supplicate  help  wath 
cries  and  tears, — which  of  the  two  would  deserve  com- 
passion most,  especially  if  the  sick  one  was  suffering 
the  most  intolerable  agonies  V  Now  this  is  just  the 
case  between  sinners  and  the  Holy  Souls.  These  last 
are  suffering  an  excruciating  martyrdom,  and  they 
have  no  means  of  helping  themselves.  It  is  true  they 
have  deserved  these  pains  for  their  sins  ;  but  they  are 
now  already  cleansed  from  those  sins.    They  must  have 


374  PURGATORY. 


returned  to  the  grace  of  God  before  they  died,  else  they 
would  not  have  been  saved.  They  are  now  most  dear, 
inexpressibly  dear,  to  God ;  and  surely  charity,  well- 
ordered,  must  follow  the  wise  love  of  the  Divine  Will, 
and  love  most  what  lie  loves  most." 

Fra.  Bertrando  however  would  not  give  way,  though 
he  did  not  quite  see  a  satisfactory  answer  to  his  friend's 
objection.  But  the  night  following  he  had  an  appari- 
tion which  it  seems  so  convinced  him,  that  from  that 
time  he  changed  his  practice,  and  offered  up  all  his 
masses,  prayers,  and  penances,  for  the  Holy  Souls.  It 
would  appear  as  if  the  authority  of  St.  Thomas  might 
bo  quoted  on  the  side  of  Fra.  Benedetto,  as  he  says,* 
"  Prayer  for  the  dead  is  more  acceptable  than  for  the 
living,  for  the  dead  are  in  the  greatest  need  of  it,  and 
cannot  help  themselves  as  the  living  can." 

How  acceptable  this  devotion  is  to  Almighty  God,  and 
how  lie  vouchsafes  to  seem,  as  it  were,  impatient  for 
the  deliverance  of  the  souls,  and  yet  to  leaA^e  it  to  our 
charity,  is  taught  us  on  the  unimpeachable  authority 
of  St.  Theresa.  In  the  book  of  her  Foundations,  she 
tells  us  that  D.  Bernardino  di  Mendoza  gave  her  a  house 
garden,  and  vineyard,  for  a  convent  at  Valladolid.  Two 
months  after  this,  and  before  the  foundation  was  ef- 
fected, he  was  suddenly  taken  ill,  and  lost  the  power 
of  speech,  so  that  he  could  not  make  a  confession, 
though  he  gave  many  signs  of  contrition.  "lie  died," 
rays  St.  Theresa,  "  very  shortly,  and  far  from  the  place 
where  I  then  was.  But  our  Lord  spoke  to  me  and  told 
me  that  he  was  saved,  though  he  had  run  a  great  risk, 
for  that  He  had  had  mercy  upon  him  because  of  the 

*  Suppl.  3.  Par*;,  q.  71.  nrt.  5.  nd.  3. 


PURGATORY.  375 


gift  he  had  given  for  the  convent  of  His  Blessed  Mother ; 
but  that  his  soul  would  not  be  freed  from  purgatory 
until  the  first  mass  was  said  in  the  new  house.  I  felt 
so  deeply  the  pains  this  soul  was  suffering,  that  al- 
though I  was  very  desirous  of  accomplishing  the  found- 
ation of  Toledo,  I  left  it  at  once  for  Valladolid.  Pray- 
ing one  day  at  Medina  del  Campo,  our  Lord  told  me  to 
make  haste,  for  that  soul  was  suffering  grieyously.  On 
this  I  started  at  once,  though  I  was  not  well  prepared 
for  it,  and  arrived  at  Valladolid  on  St.  Lawrence's 
day."  She  then  goes  on  to  relate,  that  as  she  received 
communion  at  the  first  mass  said  in  the  house,  her  be- 
factor's  soul  appeared  to  her  all  glorious,  and  after- 
ward entered  heaven.  She  did  not  expect  this,  for,  as 
she  observes,  "  although  it  had  been  revealed  to  me  that 
this  would  happen  at  the  first  mass,  I  thought  it  must 
mean  the  first  mass  Avhen  the  Blessed  Sacrament  would 
be  reserved  there."  We  might  multiply  almost  indefi- 
nitely the  revelations  of  the  saints  which  go  to  prove 
the  special  favour  with  which  our  Blessed  Lord  regards 
this  devotion  wherein  His  interests  are  so  nearly  and 
dearly  engaged.  But  it  is  time  now  to  get  a  clear  view 
of  our  subject. 

There  are,  as  we  all  know,  two  worlds,  the  world  of 
sense  and  the  world  of  spirit.  We  live  in  the  world 
of  sense,  surrounded  by  the  world  of  spirit,  and  as 
Christians,  we  have  hourly  and  very  real  communica- 
tions with  that  world.  Now,  it  is  a  mere  fragment  of 
the  Church  which  is  in  the  world  of  sense.  In  these 
days  the  Church  triumphant  in  heaven,  collecting  its 
fresh  multitudes  in  every  age,  and  constantly  beautify- 
ing itself  with  new  saints,  must  necessarily  far  exceed 
the  limits  of  the  Church  Militant,  which  does  not  em« 


U76  PURGATORY. 

brace  even  a  majority  of  the  inhabitants  of  earth. 
Nor  is  it  unlikel}^  but  most  likely,  that  the  Church 
Suffering  in  Purgatory  must  far  exceed  the  Church  Mi- 
litant in  extent,  as  it  surpasses  it  in  beauty.  Toward 
those  countless  hosts  who  are  lost  we  have  no  duties  : 
they  have  fallen  away  from  us ;  we  hardly  know  tho 
name  of  one  who  is  there,  for  many  have  thought  that 
Solomon  was  saved,  some  have  gone  so  far  as  to  regard 
the  words  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  about  Judas  as 
not  infallibly  decisive,  and  there  is  not  quite  a  consent 
even  against  Saul.  We  are  cut  off  from  them ;  all  is 
blackness  and  darkness  about  them  ;  we  have  no  rela- 
tions with  them. 

But  by  the  doctrine  of  the  communion  of  saints,  and 
of  the  unity  of  Christ's  mystical  body,  we  have  most 
intimate  relations  both  of  duty  and  affection  with  the 
Church  Triumphant  and  Suffering  ;  and  Catholic  devo- 
tion furnishes  us  with  many  appointed  and  approved 
Avays  of  discharging  these  duties  toward  them.  Of 
these  I  shall  speak  hereafter.  For  the  present  it  is 
enough  to  say  that  God  has  given  us  such  power  over 
the  dead  that  they  seem,  as  I  have  said  before,  to  depend 
almost  more  on  earth  than  on  heaven  ;  and  surely  that 
He  ha«  given  us  this  power,  and  supernatural  methods 
of  exercising  it,  is  not  the  least  touching  proof  that  His 
Blessed  Majesty  has  contrived  all  things  for  love.  Can 
we  not  conceive  the  joy  of  the  Blessed  in  heaven,  look- 
ing down  from  the  bosom  of  God  and  the  calmness  of 
their  eternal  repose  upon  this  scene  of  dimness,  disqui- 
etude, doubt,  and  fear,  and  rejoicing  in  the  plentitude 
of  their  charity,  in  their  vast  power  with  the  Sacred 
Heart  of  Jesus,  to  obtain  grace  and  blessing  day  and 
night  for  the  poor  dwellers  upon  earth  ?     It  does  not 


PURGATORY.  377 


distract  them  from  God,  it  does  not  interfere  with  tho 
Vision,  or  make  it  waver  and  grow  misty ;  it  does  not 
trouble  their  glory  or  their  peace.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  with  them  as  with  our  guardian  Angels  ;  the  affec- 
tionate ministries  of  their  charity  increase  their  own 
accidental  glory.  The  same  joy  in  its  measure  may  be 
ours  even  upon  earth.  If  we  are  fully  possessed  with 
this  catholic  devotion  for  the  Holy  Souls,  we  shall 
never  be  without  the  grateful  consciousness  of  the  im- 
mense powers  which  Jesus  has  given  us  on  their  be- 
half. We  are  never  so  like  Ilim,  or  so  nearly  imitate 
His  tender  oflices,  as  when  we  are  devoutly  exercising 
these  powers.  We  are  humbled  excessively  by  becom- 
ing the  benefiictors  of  those  beautiful  souls  who  are  so 
immeasurably  our  superiors,  as  Joseph  was  said  to  have 
learned  humility  by  commanding  Jesus.  We  love  Je- 
sus with  a  love  beyond  words,  a  love  that  almost  makes 
us  afraid,  yet  with  what  a  delightful  fear  !  Because 
in  this  devotion  it  is  His  hands  we  are  moving,  as  we 
would  move  the  unskilful  hands  of  a  child.  Dearest 
Lord,  that  He  should  let  us  do  these  things  !  That  He 
should  let  us  do  with  His  satisfjxctions  what  we  will, 
and  sprinkle  His  Precious  Blood  as  if  it  Avere  so  much 
water  from  the  nearest  well !  That  we  should  Umit 
the  efficacy  of  His  unbloody  sacrifice,  and  name  souls 
to  Him,  and  expect  Him  to  obey  us,  and  that  He  should 
do  so  !  Beautiful  was  the  helplessness  of  His  blessed 
infiincy ;  beautiful  is  His  helplessness  in  His  most  dear 
sacrament ;  beautiful  is  the  helplessness  in  which  for 
the  love  of  us  He  mostly  wills  to  be  with  regard  to  His 
dear  spouses  in  purgatory,  whose  entrance  into  glory 
His  Heart  is  so  impatiently  awaiting !  Oh,  what 
thoughts,  what  feelings,  what  love  should  be  ours,  a« 

S2* 


878  PURGATORY. 


we,  like  choirs  of  terrestrial  angels,  gaze  down  on  the 
wide,  silent,  sinless  kingdom  of  suffering,  and  then  with 
our  own  venturous  touch  wave  the  sceptred  hand  of 
Jesus  over  its  broad  regions  all  richly  dropping  with 
the  balsam  of  Ilis  saving  Blood  ! 

There  have  always  been  tAvo  views  of  purgatory  pre- 
vailing in  the  Church,  not  contradictory  the  one  of  the 
other,  but  rather  expressive  of  the  mind  and  devotion 
of  those  who  have  embraced  them.  One  is  the  view  met 
with  in  by  far  the  greater  number  of  the  lives  and  re- 
velations of  Italian  and  Spanish  saints,  the  works  of  the 
Germans  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  popular  delinea- 
tions of  purgatory  in  Belgium,  Portugal,  Brazil,  Mexico, 
and  elsewhere.  The  other  is  the  view  which  has  been 
made  popular  by  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  though  he  drew 
it  originally  from  his  favourite  treatise  on  purgatory  by 
St.  Catherine  of  Genoa,  a*nd  it  is  also  borne  out  by  many 
of  the  revelations  of  Sister  Francesca  of  Pampeluna,  a 
Theresian  nun,  published  with  a  long  and  able  censura 
by  Fra.  Giuseppe  Bonaventura  Ponze,  a  Dominican 
professor  at  Saragossa.  And  each  of  these  two  views, 
though  neither  denies  the  other,  has  its  own  peculiar 
spirit  of  devotion. 

1.  The  first  view  is  embodied  in  the  terrifying  ser- 
mons of  Italian  Quaresimali,  and  in  those  wayside  pic- 
tures which  so  often  provoke  the  fastidiousness  of  the 
English  traveller.  It  loves  to  represent  purgatory 
simply  as  a  hell  which  is  not  eternal.  Violence,  con- 
fusion, wailing,  horror,  preside  over  its  descriptions. 
It  dwells,  and  truly,  on  the  terribleness  of  the  pain  of 
eenso  which  the  soul  is  mysteriously  permitted  to  en- 
dure. The  fire  is  the  same  fire  as  that  of  hell,  created 
for  the  single  and  express  purpose  of  giving  torture. 


PURGATORY.  379 


Our  earthly  fire  is  as  pair^ted  fire  compared  to  it.  Be- 
sides this,  there  is  a  special  and  indefinable  horror  to 
the  unbodied  soul  in  becoming  tlie  prey  of  this  material 
agony.  The  sense  of  imprisonment,  close  and  intolera- 
ble, and  the  intense  palpable  darkness,  are  additional 
features  in  the  horror  of  the  scene,  which  prepai*e  us 
for  that  sensible  neighbourhood  to  hell,  which  many 
saints  have  spoken  of  as  belonging  to  purgatory.  An- 
gels are  represented  as  active  executioners  of  God's 
awful  justice.  Some  have  even  held  that  the  demons 
were  permitted  to  touch  and  harass  the  spouses  of 
Christ  in  those  ardent  fires.  Then  to  this  terriblenesa 
of  the  pain  of  sense  is  added  the  dreadfulness  of  the 
pain  of  loss.  The  beauty  of  God  remains  in  itself  the 
same  immensely  desirable  object  it  ever  was.  But  the 
soul  is  changed.  All  that  in  life  and  in  the  world  of 
sense  dulled  its  desires  after  God  is  gone  from  it,  sq 
that  it  seeks  Ilim  with  an  impetuosity  which  no  imagi- 
nation can  at  all  conceive.  The  very  burning  excess 
of  its  love  becomes  the  measure  of  its  intolerable  pain. 
And  what  love  can  do  even  on  earth  we  may  learn  from 
the  example  of  Father  John  Baptist  Sanchez,  who 
said  he  was  sure  he  should  die  of  misery,  if  any  morn- 
ing when  he  rose  he  should  know  that  he  was  certain 
not  to  die  that  day.  To  these  horrors  we  might  add 
many  more  which  depict  purgatory  simply  as  a  hell 
which  is  not  eternal. 

The  spirit  of  this  view  is  a  holy  fear  of  ofiending 
God,  a  desire  for  bodily  austerities,  a  great  value  put 
upon  indulgences,  an  extreme  horror  of  sin,  and  an 
habitual  trembling  before  the  judgments  of  God. 
Those  who  have  led  lives  of  unusual  penance,  and 
severe  Orders  in  religion,  have  always  been  irapreg- 


380  PURGATORY 


nated  with  tlils  view ;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  b.^rna 
out  in  its  minutest  details  by  the  conclusions  of  scho« 
lastic  theologians,  as  may  be  seen  at  once  by  referring 
to  Bellarmine,  who,  in  each  section  of  his  treatise  on 
purgatory,  compares  the  revelations  of  the  saints  with 
the  consequences  of  theology.  It  is  remarkable  also 
that  when  the  Blessed  Henry  Suso,  through  increased 
familiarity  and  love  of  God,  began  to  think  compara- 
tively lightly  of  the  pains  of  purgatory,  our  Lord 
warned  him  that  this  was  very  displeasing  to  Him. 
For  what  judgment  can  be  light  which  God  has  pre- 
pared for  sin  ?  Many  theologians  have  said,  not  only 
that  the  least  pain  of  purgatory  was  greater  than  the 
greatest  pain  of  earth,  but  greater  than  all  the  pains 
of  earth  put  together.  This,  then,  is  a  true  view  of 
purgatory,  but  not  a  complete  one.  Yet  it  is  not  one 
which  we  can  safely  call  coarse  or  grotesque.  It  is  the 
view  of  many  saints  and  servants  of  God:  and  it  is 
embodied  in  the  popular  celebrations  of  All  Souls'  Day 
in  several  Catholic  countries. 

2.  The  second  view  of  purgatory  does  not  deny  any 
one  of  the  features  of  the  preceding  view,  but  it  almost 
puts  them  out  of  sight  by  the  other  considerations  which 
it  brings  more  prominently  forward.  It  goes  into  pur- 
gatory with  its  eyes  fascinated  and  its  spirit  sweetly 
tranquillized  by  the  face  of  Jesus,  its  first  sight  of  the 
Sacred  Humanity,  at  the  Particular  Judgment  which  it 
has  undergone.  That  vision  abides  with  it  still,  and 
beautifies  the  uneven  terrors  of  its  prison,  as  if  with 
perpetual  silvery  showers  of  moonlight  which  seem  to 
fall  from  our  Saviour's  loving  eyes.  In  the  sea  of  fire 
it  holds  fast  by  that  image.  The  moment  that  in  Ilia 
night  it  perceives  its  own  unfitness  for  heaven,  it  wings  its 


PURGATORY.  881 


voluntary  flight  to  purgatory,  like  a  dove  to  her  proper 
nest  ill  the  shadows  of  the  forest.  There  need  no  angels 
to  convey  it  thither.  It  is  its  own  free  worship  of  the 
purity  of  God.  This  is  beautifully  expressed  in  a  reve- 
lation of  St.  Gertrude,  related  by  Blosius.  The  saint 
saw  in  spirit  the  soul  of  a  religious  who  had  passed 
her  life  in  the  exercise  of  the  most  lofty  virtues.  She 
was  standing  before  our  Lord  clothed  and  adorned 
with  charity  ;  but  she  did  not  dare  to  lift  her  eyes  to 
look  at  Him.  She  kept  them  cast  down  as  if  she  was 
ashamed  to  stani  in  His  presence,  and  showed  by  some 
gesture  her  desire  to  be  far  from  Him.  Gertrude  mar- 
velled at  this,  and  ventured  to  question  Him ;  "  Most 
merciful  God  !  why  dost  Thou  not  receive  this  soul  into 
the  arms  of  Thine  infinite  charity  ?  And  what  are 
these  strange  gestures  of  diffidence  which  I  behold  in 
her  V  Then  our  Lord  lovingly  stretched  out  His  right 
arm,  as  if  He  would  draw  the  soul  nearer  to  Himself; 
but  she,  with  profound  humility  and  great  modesty, 
retired  from  Him.  The  saint,  lost  in  still  greater  won- 
der, asked  why  she  fled  from  the  embraces  of  a  spouse 
so  worthy  to  be  loved ;  and  the  religious  answered  her, 
**  Because  I  am  not  yet  perfectly  cleansed  from  the 
stains  which  my  sins  have  left  behind  them  ;  and  even 
if  He  were  to  grant  me  in  this  state  a  free  entrance  into 
heaven,  I  would  not  accept  it ;  for  all  resplendent  as  I 
look  to  your  eyes,  I  know  that  I  am  not  yet  a  fit  spouse 
for  my  Lord." 

In  that  moment  the  soul  loves  God  most  tenderly, 
and  in  return  is  most  tenderly  beloved  by  Him.  To 
the  eyes  of  those  who  take  this  view,  that  soul  seems 
most  beautiful.  How  should  a  dear  spouse  of  God  be 
anything  but  beautiful  ?    The  soul  is  in  punishment, 


382  PURGATORY. 


true  ;  but  it  is  in  unbroken  union  with  God.  "  It  hag 
no  remembrance,"  says  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa  most 
positively,  "  no  remembrance  at  all  of  its  past  sins,  or 
of  earth."  Its  sweet  prison,  its  holy  sepulchre,  is  in 
the  adorable  will  of  its  heavenly  Father,  and  there  it 
abides  the  term  of  its  purification  with  the  most  perfect 
contentment  and  the  most  unutterable  love.  As  it  is 
not  teased  by  any  vision  of  self  or  sin,  so  neither  is  it 
harassed  by  an  atom  of  fear,  or  by  a  single  doubt  of 
its  own  imperturbable  security.  It  is  impeccable  ;  and 
there  was  a  time  oh  earth  when  that  gift  alone  seemed 
as  if  it  would  contain  all  heaven  in  itself.  It  cannot 
commit  the  slightest  imperfection.  It  cannot  have  the 
least  movement  of  impatience.  It  can  do  nothing  what- 
ever which  will  in  the  least  degree  displease  God.  It 
loves  God  above  every  thing,  and  it  loves  Him  with  a 
pure  and  disinterested  love.  It  is  constantly  consoled 
by  angels,  and  cannot  but  rejoice  in  the  confirmed 
assurance  of  its  own  salvation.  Nay,  its  very  bitterest 
agonies  are  accompanied  by  a  profound,  unshaken 
peace,  such  as  the  language  of  this  world  has  no  words 
to  tell.  There  are  revelations  which  speak  of  some  who 
are  in  purgatory,  but  have  no  fire.  They  languish 
patiently  detained  from  God,  and  that  is  enough  chas- 
tisement for  them.  There  are  revelations  too  which 
tell  of  multitudes  who  are  in  no  local  prison,  but  abide 
their  purification  in  the  air,  or  by  their  graves,  or  near 
altars  where  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is,  or  in  the  rooms 
of  those  who  pray  for  them,  or  amid  the  scenes  of  their 
former  vanity  and  frivolity.  If  silent  suflfering,  sweetly, 
gracefully  endured,  is  a  thing  so  venerable  on  earth, 
what  must  this  region  of  the  Church  be  like?  Com- 
pared with  earth,  its  trials,  doubts,  exciting  and  de- 


PUROATORY.  383 


pressing  risks,  how  much  more  beautiful,  how  much 
more  desirable,  that  still,  calm,  patient  realm  over 
which  Mary  is  crowned  as  queen,  and  Michael  is  the 
perpetual  ambassador  of  her  mercy. 

The  spirit  of  this  view  is  love,  an  extreme  desire 
that  God  should  not  be  offended,  a  yearning  for  the 
interests  of  Jesus.  It  takes  its  tone  from  the  soul's 
first  voluntary  flight  into  that  heritage  of  suffering. 
As  it  took  God's  part  against  itself  in  that  act,  so  is  it 
throughout.  This  view  of  purgatory  turns  on  the 
worship  of  God's  purity  and  sanctity.  It  looks  at 
things  from  God's  point  of  view,  and  merges  its  own 
interests  in  Ilis.  It  is  just  the  view  we  might  expect 
to  come  from  St.  Francis  of  Sales,  or  the  loving  St. 
Catherine  of  Genoa.  And  it  is  the  helplessness  rather 
than  the  wretchedness  of  the  souls  detained  which 
moves  those  who  take  this  view  to  compassion  and 
devotion  ;  but  it  is  God's  glory  and  the  interests  of 
JeSus,  which  influence  them  most  of  all. 

Oh  how  solemn  and  subduing  is  the  thought  of  that 
holy  kingdom,  that  realm  of  pain.  There  is  no  cry,  no 
murmur ;  all  is  silent,  silent  as  Jesus  before  Ilis  ene- 
mies. AVe  shall  never  know  how  we  really  love  Mary 
till  we  look  up  to  her  out  of  those  deeps,  those  vales 
of  dread  mysterious  fire.  0  beautiful  region  of  the 
Church  of  God  1  0  lovely  troop  of  the  flock  of  Mary  ! 
What  a  scene  is  presented  to  our  eyes  when  we  gaze 
upon  that  consecrated  empire  of  sinlessness,  and  yet 
of  keenest  suffering!  There  is  the  beauty  of  those 
immaculate  souls,  and  then  the  lovelin&ss,  yea,  the 
•worshipfulness  of  their  patience,  the  majesty  of  their 
gifts,  the  dignity  of  their  solemn  and  chaste  sufferings, 
the  eloquence  of  their  silence ;  the  moonlight  of  Mary'a 


884  PURGATORY. 


throne  lighting  up  their  land  of  pain  and  unspeechful 
expectation  ;  the  silver-winged  angels  voyaging  through 
the  deeps  of  that  mysterious  realm  ;  and  above  all,  that 
unseen  Face  of  Jesus  which  is  so  well  remembered  that 
it  seems  to  be  almost  seen  !  Oh  what  a  sinless  purity 
of  worship  is  here  in  this  liturgy  of  hallowed  pain  !  0 
world,  0  weary,  clamorous,  sinful  world !  who  would , 
not  break  away  if  he  could,  like  an  uncaged  dove,  from 
thy  perilous  toils  and  unsafe  pilgrimage,  and  fly  with 
joy  to  the  lowest  place  in  that  most  pure,  most  safe, 
most  holy  land  of  suffering  and  of  sinless  love  ? 

The  publication  of  St.  Catherine's  treatise  is  so  re- 
markable a  feature  in  the  history  of  the  doctrine  and 
devotion  connected  with  purgatory,  that  it  may  be  well 
to  give  my  readers  a  brief  account  of  it.  J\Igr.  Ilar- 
douin  Perefix,  archbishop  of  Paris,  had  it  examined  by 
the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne  in  1GG6,  and  in  their 
approval,  they  call  it  a  "rare  effusion  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  upon  a  pure  and  loving  soul,  and  a  marvellous 
token  of  Ills  solicitude  for  His  Church,  and  His  care 
in  enlightening  her  and  assisting  her  according  to  her 
needs ;"  and  the  approbation  goes  on  to  say  that  the 
examiners  consider  it  a  providential  provision  for 
Catholics  just  when  the  heresies  of  Luther  and  Calvin 
were  about,  among  their  other  impieties,  to  make  war 
upon  the  dead.  In  1675,  Martin  d'Esparza,  a  Jesuit, 
presented  his  censure  of  the- treatise  to  Cardinal  Azo- 
lini,  who  was  ponente  in  the  cause  of  the  saint's  beati- 
fication. In  this  he  says  that  the  doctrine  of  her  trea- 
tise is  "  incontaminate,  most  salutary,  and  altogether 
seraphic,"  that  it  has  been  "  impressed  upon  her  soul 
by  the  Holy  Spirit  with  a  very  special  and  secret  illu- 
mination," and  that  its  doctrine,  together  with  that  of 


PURGATORY.  385 


her  dialogue  between  the  Soul  and  the  Body,  is  "  of 
itself  a  most  efficacious  proof  of  the  heroic  sanctity  of 
the  servant  of  God."  It  is  remarked  by  Mainerl,  in 
his  Life  of  the  Saint,  as  a  curious  coincidence,  that 
the  name  of  purgatory  was  first  authoritatively  given 
to  the  Intermediate  State  in  1254  by  Innocent  IV., 
who  was  of  the  house  of  Fieschi,  the  family  of  our 
saint. 

The  following  is  an  epitome  of  the  docrine  of  her 
treatise.  No  sooner  has  a  soul,  with  the  guilt  of  no 
mortal  sin  upon  it,  but  owing  to  God  a  debt  of  tem- 
poral punishment,  issued  from  the  world,  and  been 
judged,  than  it  perceives  itself  to  be  confirmed  in  grace 
and  charity.  It  is  incapable  either  of  sinning  or  of 
meriting  any  more ;  and  it  is  destined  by  an  eternal 
and  immutable  decree  to  enter  one  day  as  a  queen  into 
the  kingdom  of  the  blessed,  to  see,  to  love,  and  to  enjoy 
God,  the  perpetual  fountain  of  all  felicity. 

In  that  instant  all  the  sins  of  its  past  life  are  repre- 
sented to  the  soul,  whether  mortal  or  venial,  even 
though  they  have  been  remitted  in  lifetime  by  contri- 
tion and  the  sacrament  of  penance.  But  after  this 
transitory  and  instantaneous  view  of  them,  the  soul 
remembers  nothing  more  about  them.  The  saint's 
words  are,  "The  cause  of  purgatory,  which  these  souls 
have  in  themselves,  they  see  once  for  all  in  passing  out 
of  this  life,  and  never  afterward.^'  The  reason  of  this 
exhibition  of  sins  is,  she  teaches  us,  to  enable  the  soul 
in  that  moment,  by  an  act,  no  longer  indeed  meritorious, 
but  nevertheless  a  real  act  of  the  will,  to  detest  all  its 
eins  afresh,  and  especially  those  venial  sins  for  which 
it  had  no  contrition  in  lifetime,  either  through  the 
weakness  of  an  imperfcict  heart,  or  through  the  acci« 
2A  33 


S86  PURGATORY. 


dent  of  a  sudden  death,  that  so  it  may  be  strictly  truo, 
that  no  sin  whatever  is  pardoned  unless  the  sinner 
make  an  act  of  detestation  of  it. 

After  this  momentary  view  of  sins  and  formal  de- 
testation of  them,  the  soul  perceives  in  itself  their  evil 
consequences  and  "malignant  legacies,"  and  these  form 
what  the  saint  calls  "  the  impediment  to  seeing  God." 
**The  rust  of  sin,"  she  says,  "is  the  impediment,  and 
the  fire  keeps  consuming  the  rust;  and  as  a  thing 
which  is  covered  cannot  correspond  to  the  reverberation 
of  the  sun's  rays,  so  if  the  covering  be  consumed,  the 
thing  is  at  length  laid  open  to  the  sun."  It  is  thus 
that  purgatory  wears  away  from  the  soul  the  obliga- 
tion (reatus)  of  venial  sin,  and  also  the  obligation  of 
temporal  punishment  for  remitted  mortal  sin.  This 
last  statement,  my  readers  will  perceive,  is  not  really, 
as  some  have  thought,  at  variance  with  the  teaching 
of  Suarez,  and  other  scholastics,  who  maintain  that 
there  is  no  stain  in  the  soul  left  by  sin,  and  requiring 
the  cleansing  action  of  those  penal  fires.  The  saint 
speaks  throughout  as  if  purgatory  was  not  so  much  a 
cleansing  from  stain,  as  a  quitting  oneself  of  an  obli- 
gation. 

As  soon  as  the  soul  perceives  itself  to  be  acceptable 
to  God,  and  constituted  heir  of  paradise,  but  unable, 
because  of  this  impediment,  to  take  immediate  posses- 
sion of  its  inheritance,  it  conceives  an  intense  desire  to 
be  rid  of  this  hindrance,  this  double  obligation  of  guilt 
and  punishment.  But  knowing  that  purgatory  alone 
can  consume  these  two  obligations,  and  that  it  is  for 
that  very  end  God  condemns  the  soul  to  the  fire,  it 
desires  itself  to  endure  the  punishment.  "  The  soul 
separated  from  the  body,  (these  are  the  saint's  own 


PURGATORY.  387 


words,)  not  finding  in  itself  all  the  requisite  purity, 
and  seeing  in  itself  this  impediment  which  cannot  be 
taken  away  except  by  purgatory,  at  once  throws  itself 
into  it  with  right  good  will.  Nay,  if  it  did  not  find 
this  ordinance  of  purgatory,  aptly  contrived  for  the 
removal  of  this  hindrance,  there  would  instantaneously 
be  generated  in  it  a  hell  far  worse  than  purgatory, 
inasmuch  as  it  would  see  that  because  of  this  impedi- 
ment it  could  not  get  alongside  of  God,  who  is  its 
end.  Wherefore,  if  the  soul  could  find  another  pur- 
gatory fiercer  than  this,  in  which  it  could  the  sooner 
get  rid  of  this  impediment,  it  would  speedily  plunge 
itself  therein,  through  the  impetuosity  of  the  love  it 
bears  to  God." 

But  this  is  not  all.  In  the  following  chapter  the 
saint  goes  on  to  teach  that  if  the  soul,  labouring  under 
this  impediment,  were  free  to  choose  between  ascend- 
ing at  once,  and  as  she  is,  to  paradise,  and  descending 
to  suffer  in  purgatory,  she  would  choose  to  suffer, 
although  the  sufferings  be  almost  a'3  dreadful  as  those 
of  hell.  These  are  her  words  :  "Of  how  much  import- 
ance purgatory  is,  no  tongue  can  tell,  no  mind  con- 
ceive. So  much  I  see,  that  its  pain  is  almost  as  if  it 
were  that  of  hell ;  and  yet  I  see  also  that  the  soul  which 
perceives  in  itself  the  slightest  flaw  or  mote  of  imper- 
fection, would  rather  throw  itself  into  a  thousand  hells 
than  find  itself  in  the  presence  of  the  Divine  Majesty 
with  that  defect  upon  it ;  and  therefore,  seeing  purga- 
tory to  be  ordained  for  the  very  taking  away  of  these 
flaws,  forthwith  it  plunges  into  it,  and  it  seems  by  its 
bearing,  as  I  see,  to  conceive  that  it  finds  there  an  in- 
vention of  no  little  mercy,  simply  in  the  being  able  to 
get  quit  of  this  impediment." 


488  PURGATORY. 


When  the  righteous  soul  has  thus  arrived  in  purga- 
tory, losing  sight  of  every  thing  else,  it  sees  before  it 
only  two  objects,  the  extremity  of  suffering  and  the 
extremity  of  joy.  A  most  tremendous  pain  is  caused 
by  knowing  that  God  loves  it  with  an  infinite  love,  that 
lie  is  the  Chief  Good,  that  He  regards  the  soul  as  Ilis 
daughter,  and  that  He  has  predestinated  it  to  enjoy 
Him  for  ever  in  company  with  the  Blessed ;  and  hence 
the  soul  loves  Him  with  a  pure  and  most  perfect  cha- 
rity. At  the  same  time  it  perceives  that  it  cannot  see 
Him  or  enjoy  Him  yet,  though  it  so  intensely  yearns  to 
do  80 ;  and  this  afilicts  it  so  much  the  more,  as  it  is 
quite  uncertain  when  the  term  of  its  penal  exile,  away 
from  its  Lord  and  paradise,  will  be  fulfilled.  This 
is  the  pain  of  loss  in  purgatory,  of  which  the  saint 
says  that  it  is  "  a  pain  so  extreme  that  no  tongue  can 
tell  it,  no  understanding  grasp  the  least  portion  of  it. 
Though  God  in  His  favour  showed  me  a  little  spark 
thereof,  yet  can  I  not  in  any  way  express  it  with  my 
tongue."  This  pain  of  loss  she  likens  to  the  longing 
for  a  loaf  of  bread.  "  If  in  all  the  world  there  were 
but  one  loaf,  which  was  able  to  satisfy  the  hunger  of 
all  creatures,  wTio  would  be  satiated  by  simply  behold- 
ing it,  what  would  be  the  feelings  of  a  man  who  pos- 
sesses by  nature  an  instinct  to  eat,  when  he  is  in  health  ; 
what,  I  say,  would  be  his  feelings  if  he  were  neither 
able  to  eat,  nor  yet  to  be  ill  or  to  die  ?  His  hunger 
would  be  always  increasing,  and  knowing  there  was 
but  that  one  loaf  to  satisfy  him,  and  yet  not  being 
able  to  get  at  it,  he  would  remain  in  unbearable  tor- 
ture." This  similitude,  however,  puts  before  us  but  a 
shadow  of  what  the  soul  really  suffers.  It  is  continu- 
ally borne  with  an  imperceptible  loving  violence  toward 


PURGATORY.  389 


God,  "who  alone  can  perfectly  satisfy  it.  This  violence 
is  always  on  the  increase,  the  longer  the  hungry  soul 
is  deprived  of  its  Divine  Object,  for  vrhich  it  is  un- 
speakably ravenous  ;  and  its  torture  would  thus  keep 
increasing  also,  were  it  not  daily  mitigated  by  hope, 
yea,  rather  by  the  certainty  that  it  is  approaching 
nearer  and  nearer  to  its  eternal  bliss.  In  the  words  of 
the  prophet,  the  sulFerer  knows  that  "because  his  soul 
hath  laboured,  he  shall  see  and  be  filled."* 

The  soul  undergoing  the  pain  of  sense  the  saint 
likens  to  gold  in  the  crucible.  **  Look  at  the  gold  ;  the 
more  you  melt  it  the  better  it  becomes,  and  you  melt  it 
until  every  imperfection  is  annihilated.  This  is  the 
effect  of  fire  upon  material  things.  But  the  soul  can- 
not annihilate  itself  in  God,  but  it  can  in  its  own  self; 
and  the  more  it  is  purified,  the  more  it  is  annihilated 
in  itself,  until  at  last  it  rests  itself  in  God  quite  pure. 
Gold,  when,  as  their  phrase  is,  it  is  purified  to  twenty- 
four  carats,  will  not  waste  away  any  more,  no  matter 
now  much  fire  you  apply  to  it,  because  in  reality  no- 
thing is  consumed  but  imperfection.  The  divine  fire 
acts  in  like  manner  upon  the  soul.  God  holds  it  in  the 
fire  till  every  imperfection  is  consumed,  and  until  He 
reduces  it  to  the  purity  of  twenty-four  carats  ;  every 
one,  however,  according  to  its  own  degree.  "When  the 
Boul  is  purified,  it  rests  altogether  in  God,  without  re- 
taining any  thing  in  itself.  God  is  its  life.  And  when 
lie  has  brought  the  soul  to  Himself  thus  purified,  it 
becomes  impassible,  for  there  is  nothing  left  in  it  to 
consume  away ;  and  if  it  were  still  held  in  the  firo 
when  it  is  thus  purified,  the  fire  would  give  it  no  pain, 

*  laaia*  liii.  11. 


390  PURGATORY. 


nay,  it  would  be  then  the  fire  of  Divine  Love,  itself 
eternal  life,  wherein  the  soul  could  experience  no  more 
contradictions/' 

Such  is  the  first  object  before  the  eyes  of  the  soul, 
the  extremity  of  suffering.  Now  let  us  examine  the 
other  object,  the  extremity  of  joy.  As  it  loves  God  with 
the  purest  affection,  and  knows  its  sufferings  to  be  the 
will  of  God  in  order  to  its  purification,  it  conforms 
itself  perfectly  to  the  divine  decree.  While  in  purga- 
tory, it  sees  nothing  but  that  this  pleases  God ;  it  takes 
in  no  idea  but  that  of  His  will ;  it  apprehends  nothing 
so  clearly  as  the  suitableness  of  this  purification,  in 
order  to  present  it  all  fair  and  lovely  to  so  great  a  Ma- 
jesty. Thus  the  saint  says,  "  If  a  soul,  having  still 
something  left  to  be  cleansed  away,  were  presented  to 
the  vision  of  God,  it  would  consider  itself  grievously 
injured,  and  its  suffering  would  be  worse  than  that  of 
ten  purgatories ;  for  it  would  be  quite  unable  to  endure 
that  excessive  Goodness  and  that  exquisite  Justice." 
Hence  it  is  that  the  suffering  soul  is  entirely  resigned 
to  the  will  of  its  Creator;  It  loves  its  very  pains,  and 
rejoices  in  them,  because  they  are  a  holy  ordinance 
of  God.  Thus  in  the  midst  of  the  ardent  heat  it  enjoys 
a  contentment  so  complete,  that  it  exceeds  the  grasp 
of  human  intelligence  to  comprehend  it.  "I  do  not 
believe,"  says  the  saint,  "  that  it  is  possible  to  find  a 
contentment  to  compare  with  that  of  the  souls  in  pur- 
gatory, unless  it  be  the  contentment  of  the  saints  in 
paradise.  This  contentment  increases  daily  through 
the  influx  of  God  into  those  souls,  and  this  influx  in- 
creases in  proportion  as  the  impediment  is  consumed 
and  worn  away.  Indeed,  so  far  as  the  will  is  con- 
cerned, we  can  hardly  say  that  the  pains  are  pains  at 


PURGATORY.  391 


all,  so  contentedly  do  the  souls  rest  in  the  ordinance 
of  God,  to  whose  will  pure  love  unites  them/' 

In  another  place  she  says  that  this  inexplicahle 
jubilee  of  the  soul,  while  it  is  undergoing  purgatory, 
springs  from  the  strength  and  purity  of  its  love  of  God. 
'*  This  love  gives  to  the  soul  such  a  contentment  as 
cannot  be  expressed.  But  this  contentment  does  not 
take  away  one  iota  of  the  pain ;  nay,  it  is  the  retarding 
of  love  from  the  possession  of  its  object  which  causes 
the  pain;  and  the  pain  is  greater  according  to  the 
greater  perfection  of  love  of  which  God  has  made  the 
soul  capable.  Thus  the  souls  in  purgatory  have  at 
once  the  greatest  contentment  and  the  greatest  suffer- 
ing; and  the  one  in  no  way  hinders  the  other.''  As  to 
prayers,  alms,  and  masses,  she  asserts  that  the  souls 
experience  great  consolation  from  them;  but  that  in 
these,  as  in  other  matters,  their  principal  solicitude  is 
that  every  thing  should  be  "  weighed  in  the  most  equi- 
table scales  of  the  Divine  Will,  leaving  God  to  take 
His  own  course  in  every  thing,  and  to  pay  Himself  and 
His  justice  in  the  way  His  own  infinite  goodness 
chooses  to  select." 

She  concludes  her  treatise  by  casting  ^one  glance 
upon  her  neighbour  and  one  upon  herself.  To  her 
neighbour,  she  says,  **  Oh  that  I  could  cry  so  loud  that 
I  might  frighten  all  the  men  who  dwell  upon  the  earth, 
and  say  to  them,  *  0  miserable  men !  why  have  you  let 
yourselves  be  so  blinded  by  this  world,  as  not  to  make 
any  provision  for  that  imperious  necessity,  which  you 
will  find  at  the  moment  of  death  ?  You  all  of  you 
shelter  yourselves  under  the  hope  of  God's  mercy.  But 
do  you  not  see  that  the  very  goodness  of  God  will  rise 
up  in  judgment  against  you,  for  having  rebelled  against 


o92  PURGATORY. 


the  will  of  so  good  a  Lord  V  Do  not  lull  jourselvee 
into  a  false  confidence  by  saying,  'AVhen  I  come  to  die 
I  will  make  a  good  confession,  and  then  I  will  take  the 
plenary  indulgence,  and  thus  in  that  last  moment  I 
shall  be  cleansed  from  all  my  sins,  and  so  I  shall  be 
saved/  Think  a  little.  Confession  and  contrition  are 
necessary  for  a  plenary  indulgence ;  and  contrition  is 
such  a  hard  thing  to  get,  that  if  you  knew  how  hard  it 
was,  you  would  tremble  for  very  fear,  and  you  would 
be  much  more  likely  to  believe  that  such  a  grace  w^ould 
never  be  given  you,  than  to  expect  it  with  such  confi- 
dence as  you  do  now." 

When  she  looked  at  herself  with  the  light  of  a  super- 
natural illumination,  she  saw  that  God  had  set  her  up 
in  the  Church  as  an  express  and  living  image  of  pur- 
gatory. She  says,  "  This  form  of  purification,  which 
I  behold  in  the  souls  in  purgatory,  I  perceive  in  my 
own  soul  now.  I  see  that  my  soul  dwells  in  its  body 
as  in  a  purgatory  altogether  conformable  to  the  true 
purgatory,  only  in  such  measure  as  my  body  can  bear 
without  dying.  Nevertheless  it  is  always  increasing 
by  little  and  little,  until  it  reaches  the  point  when  it 
will  really  die."  Her  death  was  indeed  most  wonder- 
ful, and  has  always  been  considered  as  a  martyrdom 
of  Divine  Love.  So  truly  from  the  first  has  her  posi- 
tion been  appreciated,  as  the  great  doctress  of  purga- 
tory, that  in  the  old  life  of  her,  the  "  vita  antica,"  ex- 
amined by  theologians  in  1670,  and  approved  in  the 
Roman  process  of  her  canonization,  and  which  was 
composed  by  Marabotto  her  confessor,  and  Vernazza 
her  spiritual  son,  it  is  said,  "  Verily  it  seems  that  God 
set  up  this  His  creature  as  a  mirror  and  an  examj)le 
cf  the  pains  of  the  other  life,  which  souls  suflfer  in 


PURGATORY.  393 


purgatory.  It  is  just  as  if  He  had  placed  her  upon  a 
high  wall,  dividing  this  life  from  the  life  to  come ;  so 
that  seeing  what  is  suffered  in  that  life  beyond,  she 
might  manifest  to  us,  even  in  this  life,  what  we  are  to 
expect  when  we  have  passed  the  boundary."  This  is 
a  mere  epitome  of  her  wonderful  and  exquisitely 
beautiful  treatise,  which  has  given  St.  Catherine  a  rank 
among  the  theologians  of  the  Church. 

The  same  view  of  Purgatory  as  that  taken  by  St. 
Catherine  is  very  briefly  but  touchingly  embodied  by 
Dante,  in  that  beautiful  scene  where  he  and  Virgil  are 
wandering  on  the  outskirts  of  purgatory.  The  poet  is 
dazzled  all  at  once  by  the  bright  light  of  an  angel 
coming  across  the  sea,  and  impelling  a  bark  filled  with 
new  souls  for  purgatory  ;  and  he  describes  the  boat  as 
driving  toward  the  shore  so  lightly,  that  it  drew  no 
wake  upon  the  water,  while  the  souls  that  had  left  life, 
and  earth,  and  judgment,  but  a  few  minutes  since, 
pensively  yet  cheeringly  sang,  "In  exitu  Israel  de 
Egypto.'^  Surely  it  was  a  beautiful  thought  of  his ; 
and  as  he  was  a  theologian  as  well  as  a  poet,  it  seems» 
to  deserve  mention  here,  as  a  proof  of  the  view  of  pur- 
gatory which  recommended  itself  to  intellectual  me» 
in  Dante's  day. 

3.  But  let  us  now  see  what  is  common  to  both  thes« 
views  of  purgatory.  This  is  a  more  practical  considera- 
tion. I  suppose  there  are  none  of  us  who  expect  to  be 
lost.  "We  know  and  feel,  with  more  or  less  of  alarm, 
the  greatness  of  the  risk  we  are  running ;  but  to  ex- 
pect to  be  lost  would  be  the  sin  of  despair.  Hell  is 
only  practical  to  us  as  a  motive  of  greater  diligence, 
greater  strictness,  greater  circumspectness,  greater 
fear.    But  it  is  not  so  with  purgatory.     I  suppose  we 


394  PURGATORY. 


all  expect,  or  think  ourselves  sure,  to  go  there.  If  we 
do  not  think  much  of  the  matter  at  all,  then  we  may 
have  some  vague  notion  of  going  straight  to  heaven  as 
soon  as  we  are  judged.  But  if  we  seriously  reflect 
upon  it,  upon  our  own  lives,  upon  God's  sanctity,  upon 
what  we  read  in  books  of  devotion  and  the  lives  of 
the  Saints,  I  can  hardly  conceive  any  one  of  us  ex- 
pecting to  escape  purgatory,  and  not  rather  feeling  that 
it  must  be  almost  a  stretch  of  the  Divine  Mercy  which 
will  get  us  even  there.  It  would  more  likely  be  vain 
presumption  than  heroic  hope,  if  we  thought  other- 
wise. Now,  if  we  really  expect  that  our  road  to 
heaven  will  be  through  the  punishments  of  purgatory, 
for  surely  its  purification  is  penal,  it  very  much  con- 
cerns us  to  know  what  is  common  to  both  the  views 
of  purgatory,  which  it  appears  prevail  in  the  Church. 
First,  both  these  views  agree  that  the  pains  are  ex- 
tremely severe,  as  well  because  of  the  office  which  God 
intends  them  to  fulfil,  as  because  of  the  disembodied 
soul  being  the  subject  of  them.  Both  agree  also  in  the 
length  of  the  suflering.  This  requires  to  be  dwelt 
upon,  as  it  is  hard  to  convince  people  of  it,  and  a  great 
deal  comes  of  the  conviction,  both  to  ourselves  and 
others.  This  duration  may  be  understood  in  two 
ways,  first,  as  of  actual  length  of  time,  and  secondly, 
as  of  seeming  length  from  the  excess  of  pain.  With 
regard  to  the  first,  if  we  look  into  the  revelations  of 
Sister  Francesca  of  Pampeluna,  we  shall  find,  among 
some  hundreds  of  cases,  that  by  far  the  greater  ma- 
jority suffered  thirty,  forty,  or  sixty  years.  Here  are 
some  of  the  examples:  a  holy  bishop,  for  some  negli- 
j;ence  in  his  high  office,  had  been  in  purgatory  fifty- 
nine  years,  before  he  appeared  to  the  servant  of  God ; 


PURGATORY.  395 


another  bishop,  so  generous  of  his  revenues  that  he 
■was  named  the  almsgiver,  had  been  there  five  years 
because  he  had  wished  for  the  dignity ;  another  bishop 
had  been  forty ;  a  priest  forty  years  because  through 
his  negligence  some  sick  persons  had  died  without  the 
sacraments ;  another  forty-five  years  for  inconsiderate- 
ness  in  his  ministerial  functions ;  a  gentleman  fifty- 
nine  years  for  worldliness  ;  another  sixty-four  for  fond- 
ness for  playing  at  cards  for  money  ;  another  thirty-five 
years  for  worldliness.  Bishops  seem  upon  the  whole, 
according  to  her  revelations,  to  remain  longest  there, 
and  to  be  visited  with  the  extreme  of  rigour. 

Without  multiplying  instances,  which  it  would  be 
easy  to  do,  these  disclosures  may  teach  us  greater 
watchfulness  over  ourselves,  and  more  unwearied  per- 
severance in  praying  for  the  departed.  The  old  found- 
ations for  perpetual  masses  embody  the  same  senti- 
ment. We  are  apt  to  leave  ofi"  too  soon,  imagining  with 
a  foolish  and  unenlightened  fondness  that  our  friends 
are  freed  from  purgatory  much  sooner  than  they  really 
are.  If  Sister  Francesca  beheld  the  souls  of  many  fer- 
vent Carmelites,  some  of  whom  had  wrought  miracles 
in  lifetime,  still  in  purgatory  ten,  twenty,  thirty,  sixty 
years  after  their  death,  and  still  not  near  their  deliver- 
ance, as  many  told  her,  what  must  become  of  us  and 
ours  ?  Then  as  to  seeming  length  from  the  extremity 
of  pain,  there  are  many  instances  on  record  in  the  Chro- 
nicles of  the  Franciscans,  the  life  of  St.  Francis  Jerome, 
and  elsewhere,  of  souls  appearing  an  hour  or  two  after 
death,  and  thinking  they  had  been  many  years  in  pur- 
gatory. And  such  may  be  the  purgatory  of  those  who 
are  caught  up  to  meet  the  Lord  at  the  Last  Day. 

V.f '  I  views  agree  again  in  holding  that,  what  we  in 


396  PURGATORY. 


the  world  call  very  trivial  faults,  are  most  iswverely  vi* 
sited  in  purgatory.  St.  Peter  Damian  gives  us  many 
instances  of  this,  and  others  are  collected  and  quoted 
by  Bellarmine.  Slight  feelings  of  self-complacency, 
trifling  inattentions  in  the  recital  of  the  Divine  Office, 
and  the  like,  occur  frequently  among  them.  Sister 
Francesca  mentions  the  case  of  a  girl  of  fourteen  in 
purgatory  because  she  was  not  quite  conformed  to  the 
will  of  God  in  dying  so  young ;  and  one  soul  said  to 
her,  "  Ah !  men  little  think  in  the  world  how  dearly 
they  are  going  to  pay  here  for  faults  they  hardly  note 
there."  She  even  saw  souls  that  were  immensely  pu- 
nished only  for  having  been  scrupulous  in  this  life ; 
either,  I  suppose,  because  there  is  mostly  self-will  in 
scruples,  or  because  they  did  not  lay  them  down  when 
obedience  was  commanded.  Wrong  notions  about 
small  faults  may  thus  lead  us  to  neglect  the  dead,  or 
leave  off  our  prayers  too  soon,  as  well  as  lose  a  lesson 
for  ourselves. 

Then  again,  both  views  agree  as  to  the  helplessness 
of  the  Holy  Souls.  They  lie  like  the  paralytic  at  the 
pool.  Not  even  the  coming  of  the  angel  is  any  bless- 
ing to  them,  unless  there  be  some  one  of  us  to  help 
them.  Some  have  even  thought  they  cannot  pray. 
Anyhow,  they  have  no  means  of  making  themselves 
heard  by  us  on  whose  charity  they  depend.  Some 
writers  have  said,  that  our  Blessed  Lord  will  not  help 
them  without  our  co-operation  ;  and  that  our  Blessed 
Lady  cannot  help  them,  except  in  direct  ways,  because 
she  is  no  longer  able  to  make  satisfaction ;  though  I 
never  like  to  hear  of  any  thing  our  dearest  Mother  can- 
not do.  Whatever  may  come  of  these  opinions,  they  at 
least  illustrate  the  strong  way  in  which  theologians  ap- 


PURGATORY.  397 


prehend  the  helplessness  of  the  Holy  Souls.  Then 
another  feature  in  their  helplessness  is  the  forgetfulncss 
of  the  living,  or  the  cruel  flattery  of  relations  who  will 
always  have  it  that  those  near  or  dear  to  them  die  the 
death  of  Saints.  They  would  surely  have  a  scruple,  if 
they  knew  of  how  many  masses  and  prayers  they  rob 
the  souls,  by  the  selfish  exaggeration  of  their  goodness. 
I  call  it  selfish,  for  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  miserable 
device  to  console  themselves  in  their  sorrow.  The  very 
state  of  the  Holy  Souls  is  one  of  the  most  unbounded 
helplessness.  They  cannot  do  penance;  they  cannot 
merit ;  they  cannot  satisfy ;  they  cannot  gain  in- 
dulgences ;  they  have  no  sacraments ;  they  are  not 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  God's  Vicar,  overflowing 
with  the  plenitude  of  means  of  grace  and  manifold 
benedictions.  They  arc  a  portion  of  the  Church 
without  either  priesthood  or  altar  at  their  own  com- 
mand. 

These  are  the  points  common  to  both  views  of  pur- 
gatory ;  and  how  manifold  are  the  lessons  we  learn 
from  them,  on  our  own  behalf  as  well  as  on  behalf  of 
the  Holy  Souls.  For  ourselves,  what  light  does  all  this 
throw  on  slovenliness,  lukewarmness,  and  love  of  ease  ? 
What,  does  it  make  us  think  of  performing  our  devo- 
tions out  of  a  mere  spirit  of  formality,  or  a  trick  of 
habit?  What  a  change  should  it  not  work  in  our 
lives  !  What  diligence  in  our  examens,  confessions, 
communions,  and  prayers  !  It  seems  as  if  the  grace  of 
all  graces,  for  which  we  should  ever  be  importuning 
our  dear  Lord,  would  be  to  hate  sin  with  something  of 
the  hatred  wherewith  He  hated  it  in  the  garden  of 
Gethsemane.  Oh,  is  not  the  purity  of  God  something 
awful,  unspeakable,  adorable  ?     He,  who  is  Himsoif  a 

34 


398  PURGATORl . 


simple  act,  has  gone  on  acting,  multiplying  acts  since 
creation,  yet  lie  has  incurred  no  stain !  lie  is  ever 
mingling  with  a  most  unutterable  condescension  with 
what  is  beneath  Ilim, — yet  no  stain !  He  loves  Ilia 
creatures  with  a  love  immeasurably  more  intense  than 
the  wildest  passion  of  earth, — yet  no  stain  I  He  is 
omnipotent,  yet  it  is  beyond  the  limits  of  His  power  to 
receive  a  stain.  He  is  so  pure  that  the  very  vision  of 
Him  causes  eternal  purity  and  blessedness.  Mary's 
purity  is  but  a  fair  thin  shadow  of  it.  Nay,  the  Sacred 
Humanity  itself  cannot  adequately  worship  the  purity 
of  the  Most  High.  And  we  are  to  dwell  in  His  arms 
for  ever,  we  are  to  dwell  amid  the  everlasting  burnings 
of  that  Uncreated  Purity.  Yet,  let  us  look  at  our  lives  ; 
let  us  trace  our  hearts  faithfully  through  but  one  day, 
and  see  of  what  mixed  intentions,  human  respects,  self- 
love,  and  pusillanimous  temper  our  actions,  nay 
even  our  devotions,  are  made  up ;  and  does  not  pur- 
gatory, heated  seven-fold,  and  endured  to  the  day  of 
doom,  seem  but  a  gentle  novitiate  for  the  Vision  of  the 
All-holy? 

But  some  persons  turn  in  anger  from  the  thought  of 
purgatory,  as  if  it  were  not  to  be  endured,  that  after 
trying  all  our  lives  long  to  serve  God,  we  should  ac- 
complish the  tremendous  feat  of  a  good  death,  only  to 
))ass  from  the  agonies  of  the  death-bed  into  fire, 
long,  keen,  searching,  triumphant,  incomparable  fire. 
Alas !  my  dear  friends,  your  anger  will  not  help 
you  nor  alter  facts.  But  have  you  thought  sufii- 
ciently  about  God?  Have  you  tried  to  realize  His 
holiness  and  purity  in  assiduous  meditation  ?  Is  there 
a  real  divorce  between  you  and  the  world,  which  you 
know  is    God's   enemy?     Do  you  take  God's  side? 


PURGATORY.  309 


Have  you  wedded  His  interests?  Do  you  long  for 
His  glory  ?  Have  you  put  sin  alongside  of  our  dear 
Saviour's  Passion,  and  measured  the  one  by  the 
other  ?  Oh,  if  you  had,  purgatory  would  but  seem  to 
you  the  last,  unexpected,  and  inexpressibly  tender  in- 
vention of  an  obstinate  love,  which  was  mercifully  de- 
termined to  save  you  in  spite  of  yourself!  It  would  be 
a  perpetual  wonder  to  you,  a  joyous  wonder,  fresh  every 
morning,  a  wonder  that  would  be  meat  and  drink  to 
your  soul,  that  you,  being  what  you  are,  what  you 
know  yourself  to  be,  what  you  may  conceive  God 
knows  you  to  be,  should  be  saved  eternally !  Remem- 
ber what  the  suffering  soul  said  so  simply,  yet  with 
such  force  to  Sister  Francesca,  "Ah  !  those  on  that  side 
the  grave  little  reckon  how  dearly  they  will  pay  on  this 
side  for  the  lives  they  live  1"  To  be  angry  because 
you  are  told  you  will  go  to  purgatory!  Silly,  silly 
people !  most  likely  it  is  a  great  false  flattery,  and  that 
you  will  never  be  good  enough  to  go  there  at  all.  Why 
positively,  you  do  not  recognise  your  own  good  for- 
tune, when  you  are  told  of  it.  And  none  but  the  hum- 
ble go  there.  I  remember  Maria  Crocifissa  was  told, 
that  although  many  of  the  Saints  while  on  earth  loved 
God  more  than  some  do  even  in  heaven,  yet  that  the 
greatest  saint  on  earth  was  not  so  humble  as  are 
the  souls  in  purgatory.  I  do  not  think  I  ever  read 
any  thing  in  the  lives  of  the  Saints  which  struck 
me  so  much  as  that.  You  see  it  is  not  well  to  be 
angry ;  for  those  only  are  lucky  enough  to  get  into 
purgatory,  who  sincerely  believe  themselves  to  bo 
worthy  of  hell. 

But  we  not  only  learn  lessons  for  our  own  good,  but 
for  the  good  of  the  Holy  Souls.    AVe  see  that  our  cha- 


"100  PURGATORY. 


ritable  attentions  toward  them  must  be  far  more  vigor- 
ous and  persevering  than  they  have  been ;  for  that 
men  go  to  purgatory  for  very  little  matters,  and  remain 
there  an  unexpectedly  long  time.  But  their  most 
touching  appeal  to  us  lies  in  their  helplessness ;  and 
our  dear  Lord,  with  His  usual  loving  arrangement,  has 
made  the  extent  of  our  power  to  help  them  more  than 
commensurate  with  their  inability  to  help  themselves. 
Some  theologians  have  said  that  prayer  for  the  Holy 
Souls  is  not  infallibly  answered.  I  confess  their  argu- 
ments on  this  head  do  not  convince  me ;  but,  conceding 
the  point,  how  wonderful  still  is  the  power  which  we 
can  exercise  in  favour  of  the  departed !  St.  Thomas 
has  at  least  taught  us  that  prayer  for  the  dead  is  more 
readily  accepted  with  God  than  prayer  for  the  living. 
We  can  offer  and  apply  for  them  all  the  satisfactions  of 
our  Blessed  Lord.  We  can  do  vicarious  penance  for 
them.  We  can  give  to  them  all  the  satisfaction  of  our 
ordinary  actions,  and  of  our  sufferings.  We  can  make 
over  to  them  by  way  of  suffrage,  the  indulgences  we 
gain,  provided  the  Church  has  made  them  applicable  to 
the  dead.  We  can  limit  and  direct  upon  them,  or  any 
one  of  them,  the  intention  of  the  Adorable  Sacrifice. 
The  Church,  which  has  no  jurisdiction  over  them,  can 
yet  make  indulgences  applicable  or  inapplicable  to  them 
by  way  of  suffrage ;  and  by  means  of  liturgy,  comme- 
moration, incense,  holy  water,  and  the  like,  can  reach 
efficaciously  to  them,  and  most  of  all  by  her  device  of 
privileged  altars.  The  Communion  of  Saints  furnishes 
the  veins  and  channels  by  which  all  these  things  reaci 
them  in  Christ.  Heaven  itself  condescends  to  act  upon 
them  through  earth.  Their  queen  helps  them  by  setting 
us  to  work  for  them,  and  the  ang'ils  and  the  saints 


PURGATORY.  401 


bestow  their  gifts  through  us,  whom  they  persuade  to 
be  their  almoners ;  nay,  we  are  often  their  almoners 
without  knowing  that  we  are  so.  Our  blessed  Lord 
vouchsafes  to  look  to  us,  as  if  He  would  say,  Here  are 
My  weapons,  work  for  Me!  just  as  a  father  will  let  his 
child  do  a  portion  of  his  work,  in  spite  of  the  risk  he 
runs  of  having  it  spoiled.  To  possess  such  powers,  and 
not  to  use  them,  would  be  the  height  of  irreverence 
toward  God,  as  well  as  of  want  of  charity  to  men. 
There  is  nothing  so  irreverent,  because  nothing  so 
unSIiiil,  as  to  shrink  from  God's  gifts  simply  because 
of  their  exuberance.  Men  have  a  feeling  of  safety  in 
not  meddling  with  the  supernatural ;  but  the  truth  is, 
we  cannot  stand  aloof  on  one  side  and  be  safe.  If 
we  do  not  enter  the  system,  and  humbly  take  our 
place  in  it,  it  will  draw  us  in,  only  to  tear  us  to  pieces 
when  it  has  done  so.  The  dread  of  the  supernatural 
is  the  unsafest  of  feelings.  The  je.tlousy  of  it  is  a 
prophecy  of  eternal  loss,  which  fiir  too  often  comes 
true. 

All  that  I  have  said  hitherto  has  been,  indirectly  at 
least,  a  plea  for  this  devotion  ;  but  I  must  come  now  to 
a  more  direct  recommendation  of  it. 

1.  It  is  not  saying  too  much  to  call  devotion  to  the 
Holy  Souls  a  kind  of  centre  in  which  all  Catholic  de- 
votions meet,  and  which  satisfies  more  than  any  other 
single  devotion  our  duties  in  that  way ;  because  it  is  a 
devotion  all  of  love,  and  of  disinterested  love.  If  Ave 
cast  an  eye  over  the  chief  Catholic  devotions,  we  shall 
Bee  the  truth  of  this.  Take  the  devotion  of  St.  Ignatius 
to  the.  glory  of  God.  This,  if  I  may  dare  to  use  such 
an  expression  of  Him,  was  the  special  and  favourite 
devotion  of  Jesus,  Now,  purgatory  is  simply  a  field 
2B  34* 


i02  rURGATORY. 


white  for  the  harvest  of  God's  glory.  Not  a  prayer 
can  be  said  for  the  Holy  Souls,  but  God  is  at  once  glo- 
rified, both  by  the  faith  and  the  charity  of  the  mere 
prayer.  Not  an  alleviation,  however  trifling,  can  befall 
any  one  of  the  souls,  but  He  is  forthwith  glorified  by 
the  honour  of  His  Son's  Precious  Blood,  and  the 
approach  of  the  soul  to  bliss.  Not  a  soul  is  delivered 
from  its  trial,  but  God  is  immensely  glorified.  Ho 
crowns  Ilis  own  gifts  in  that  dear  soul.  The  cross  of 
Christ  has  triumphed.  The  decree  of  predestination  is 
victoriously  accomplished ;  and  there  is  a  new  wor 
shipper  in  the  courts  of  heaven.  Moreover,  God's 
glory,  His  sweetest  glory,  the  glory  of  His  love,  ia 
sooner  or  later  infallible  in  purgatory :  because  there 
is  no  sin  there,  nor  possibility  of  sin.  It  is  only  a  ques- 
tion of  time.  All  that  is  gained,  is  real  gain.  All  that 
is  reaped  is  true  wheat,  without  chaff  or  stubble,  or 
any  such  thing.  " 

Again,  what  devotion  is  justly  more  dear  to  Chris- 
tians than  the  devotion  to  the  Sacred  Humanity  of 
Jesus?  It  is  rather  a  ftimily  of  various  and  beau- 
tiful devotions,  than  a  devotion  by  itself.  Yet  see 
how  they  are  all,  as  it  were,  fulfilled,  affectionately 
fulfilled,  in  devotion  to  the  Holy  Souls.  The  quicker 
the  souls  are  liberated  from  purgatory,  the  more  is  the 
beautiful  harvest  of  Ilis  blessed  Passion  multiplied  and 
accelerated.  An  early  harvest  is  a  blessing,  as  well  as 
a  plentiful  one ;  for  all  delay  of  a  soul's  ingress  into 
the  praise  of  heaven  is  an  eternal  and  irremediable  loss 
of  honour  and  glory  to  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus. 
How  strangely  things  sound  in  the  language  of  the 
sanctuary !  yet,  so  it  is.  Can  the  Sacred  Humanity  be 
honoured  more  than  by  the  adorable  sacrifice  of  tho 


PURGATORY.  40iJ 


Mass?  And  here  is  our  chief  action  upon  |.urgatory. 
Faith  in  His  sacraments  as  used  for  the  dead  is  a  pleas- 
ing homage  to  Jesus ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
faith  in  indulgences  and  privileged  altars,  and  the  like. 
The  powers  of  the  Church  all  flow  from  His  Sacred 
Humanity,  and  are  a  perpetual  praise  and  thank-ofier- 
ing  to  It.  So,  again,  this  devotion  honours  Ilim  by 
imitating  His  zeal  for  souls.  For  this  zeal  is  a  badge 
of  Ilis  people,  and  an  inheritance  from  Ilim. 

Devotion  to  our  dearest  Mother  is  equally  compre- 
hended in  this  devotion  to  the  Holy  Souls,  whether  w^e 
look  at  her  as  the  Mother  of  Jesus,  and  so  sharing  the 
honours  of  His  Sacred  Humanity,  or  as  Mother  of 
mercy,  and  so  specially  worshipped*  by  works  of 
mercy,  or,  lastly,  as  in  a  particular  sense,  the  queen  of 
purgatory,  and  so  having  all  manner  of  dear  interests 
to  be  promoted  in  the  welfare  and  deliverance  of  those 
Buffering  souls. 

Next  to  this  we  may  rank  devotion  to  the  holy  an- 
gels, and  this  also  is  satisfied  in  devotion  to  the  Holy 
Souls.  For  it  keeps  filling  the  vacant  thrones  in  the 
angelic  choirs,  those  unsightly  gaps  which  the  fall  of 
Lucifer  and  one-third  of  the  heavenly  host  occasioned. 
It  multiplies  the  companions  of  the  blessed  spirits.  They 
may  be  supposed  also  to  look  with  an  especial  interest 
on  that  part  of  the  Church  which  lies  in  purgatory,  be- 
cause it  is  already  crowned  with  their  own  dear  gift 


*  I  do  not  refrain  from  the  use  of  this  word  as  the  English  transla- 
tion of  cultus;  weary  experience  shows  that  objectors  obstinately 
repeat  their  objections,  whatever  we  do  to  abate  them,  and  they  rather 
triumph  over  the  show  of  weaknes?,  than  appreciate  the  charity  of  such- 
like condescensions.  We  lose  by  them  ourselves,  without  gaining  our 
opponents 


404  PURGATORY, 


and  ornament  of  final  perseverance,  and  yet  it  has  nol 
entered  at  once  into  its  inheritance  as  they  did.  Many 
of  them  also  have  a  tender  personal  interest  in  purga- 
tory. Thousands,  perhaps  millions  of  them,  are  guar- 
dians to  those  souls,  and  their  office  is  not  over  yet. 
Thousands  have  clients  there  who  were  specially  do- 
voted  to  them  in  life.  Will  St.  Raphael,  who  was  so 
faithful  to  Tobias,  be  less  faithful  to  his  clients  there  ? 
Whole  choirs  are  interested  about  others,  either  because 
they  are  finally  to  be  aggregated  to  that  choir,  or  be- 
cause in  lifetime  they  had  a  special  devotion  to  it. 
Marie  Denise,  of  the  Visitation,  used  to  congratulate 
her  angel  every  day  on  the  grace  he  had  received  to 
stand  when  so  many  around  him  were  falling.  It  was, 
as  I  have  said  before,  the  only  thing  she  could  know 
for  certain  of  his  past  life.  Could  he  neglect  her,  if  by 
the  will  of  God  she  went  to  purgatory  ?  Again,  St. 
Michael,  as  prince  of  purgatory,  and  our  Lady's  regent, 
in  fulfilment  of  the  dear  office  attributed  to  him  by  the 
Church  in  the  mass  for  the  dead,  takes  as  homage  to 
himself  all  charity  to  the  Holy  Souls ;  and  if  it  be  true 
that  a  zealous  heart  is  always  a  proof  of  a  grateful  one, 
that  bold  and  magnificent  spirit  will  recompense  us  one 
day  in  his  own  princely  style,  and  perhaps  within  the 
limits  of  that  his  special  jurisdiction. 

Neither  is  devotion  to  the  saints  without  its  interests 
in  this  devotion  for  the  dead.  It  fills  them  with  the 
delights  of  charity  as  it  swells  their  numbers  ana  beau- 
tifies their  ranks  and  orders.  Numberless  patron  saints 
are  personally  interested  in  multitudes  of  souls.  Tho 
aflfectionate  relation  between  their  clients  and  them- 
selves not  only  subsists,  but  a  deeper  tenderness  has 
entered  into  it,  because  of  tho  fearful  suflfering,  and  a 


rURGATORY.  405 


livelier  interest,  because  of  the  accomplished  victory. 
They  see  in  the  Holy  Souls  their  own  handiwork,  the 
fruit  of  their  example,  the  answer  to  their  prayers,  the 
success  of  their  patronage,  the  beautiful  and  finished 
crown  of  their  affectionate  intercession.  And  all  this 
applies  with  peculiar  force  to  the  founders  of  orders 
and  congregations.  Ah !  those  saints,  those  founders, 
are  the  children  of  the  Sacred  Heart ;  they  have  been 
conceived  in  its  inmost  cavities ;  they  have  been  suckled 
with  its  choicest  Blood,  softer  than  milk,  and  more 
cheering  than  the  wine  of  Engaddi's  peerless  grape ; 
their  charity  has  caught  the  trick  of  Its  compression 
and  dilation :  who  then  can  tell  how  Founders  yearn 
over  their  children  in  those  cleansing  fires  ?  Those 
souls  honoured  them  through  life ;  they  lived  in  their 
Father's  and  Founder's  house ;  his  voice  was  ever  in 
their  ears  ;  his  feasts  there  were  days  of  song  and  joy, 
and  spiritual  sunshine ;  his  relics  Avere  their  shield ; 
his  rule  their  second  gospel ;  his  sayings  and  doings 
were  ever  on  their  lips  ;  his  dress  and  livery  were  dear 
to  them  as  the  garment  of  a  king  to  his  Eastern  favour- 
ite; he  was  with  them  all  day  long;  they  loved  him 
with  a  venturous  love ;  they  praised  him  till  men  smiled 
at  their  family  pride  ;  they  feared  him  as  one  the  dark- 
ening of  whose  eye  upon  their  souls  was  a  worse  cala- 
mity than  fire,  or  sword,  or  pestilence ;  and  when  they 
came  to  die,  his  name,  and  no  other,  except  the  names 
of  Jesus  and  Mary,  could  so  well  soothe  the  troubled 
mind,  so  drive  away  the  besetting  demons,  and  so  calm 
the  starts,  and  frets,  and  catchings  which,  if  they  im- 
pair not  the  perfection  of  our  patience,  take  away  at 
least  from  death  its  joy-inspiring  gracefulness.  What 
wonder  their  Founder  should  love  them,  as  he  beholds 


406  PURGATORY. 


them  bounding  immaculate  and  beautiful,  the  gems  of 
his  order,  the  glory  of  his  rule,  in  the  chastening  fires 
of  God ! 

2.  But  there  is  another  peculiarity  in  this  devotion 
for  the  dead.  It  does  not  rest  in  words  and  feelings, 
nor  does  it  merely  lead  to  action  at  last.  It  is  action  in 
itself,  and  thus  it  is  a  substantial  devotion.  It  speaks, 
and  a  deed  is  done  ;  it  loves,  and  a  pain  is  lessened  ;  it 
sacrifices,  and  a  soul  is  delivered.  Nothing  can  be 
more  solid.  AVe  might  almost  dare  to  compare  it,  in 
its  poor  measure,  to  the  eflBcacious  voice  of  God,  which 
works  what  it  says,  and  effects  what  it  utters  and  wills, 
and  a  creation  comes.  The  royal  devotion  of  the 
Church  is  the  works  of  mercy  ;  and  see  how  they  are 
all  satisfied  in  this  devotion  for  the  dead !  It  feeds  the 
hungry  souls  with  Jesus,  the  Bread  of  Angels.  It 
gives  them  to  drink  in  their  incomparable  thirst  His 
Precious  Blood.  It  clothes  the  naked  with  the  robe  of 
glory.  It  visits  the  sick  with  mighty  powers  to  heal, 
and  at  the  least  consoles  them  by  the  visit.  It  frees 
the  captives  with  a  heavenly  and  eternal  freedom,  from 
a  bondage  dreader  far  than  death.  It  takes  in  the 
strangers,  and  heaven  is  the  hospice  into  which  it  re- 
ceives them.  It  buries  the  dead  in  the  Bosom  of  Jesus 
in  everlasting  rest.  Oh,  when  the  last  doom  shall 
come,  and  our  dearest  Lord  shall  ask  those  seven  ques- 
tions of  Ilis  judicial  process,  those  interrogatories  of 
the  works  of  mercy,  how  happy  will  that  man  be,  an(J 
it  may  be  the  poorest  beggar  among  us,  who  never 
gave  an  alms  because  he  has  had  to  live  on  alms  him- 
self, who  shall  hear  his  own  defence  sweetly  and  elo- 
quently taken  up  by  crowds  of  blessed  souls,  to  whom 
he  has  done  all  these  things  while  they  waited  in  their 


rURGATORY.  4  07 


prison-house  of  hope  I  Three  times  a  day  St.  Francis 
of  Sales  put  himself  in  the  presence  of  God  as  before 
his  judge,  and  tried  to  judge  himself  in  his  Saviour's 
way.  Let  us  but  do  that,  and  we  shall  become  so 
many  servitors  of  Michael,  so  many  guardian  angels 
of  that  beautiful  but  melancholy  land  of  suffering  and 
expectant  souls. 

3.  Another  point  of  view  from  which  Ave  may  look 
at  this  devotion  for  the  dead,  is  as  a  specially  complete 
and  beautiful  exercise  of  the  three  theological  virtues 
of  ftiith,  hope,  and  charity,  which  are  the  supernatural 
fountains  of  our  whole  spiritual  life.  It  exercises 
faith,  because  it  leads  men  not  only  to  dwell  in  the  un- 
seen world,  but  to  work  for  it  with  as  much  energy  and 
conviction  as  if  it  was  before  their  very  eyes.  Un- 
thoughtful  or  ill-read  persons  almost  start  sometimes  at 
the  minuteness,  familiarity,  and  assurance  with  which 
men  talk  of  the  unseen  world,  as  if  it  were  the  banks 
of  the  Rhine,  or  the  olive-yards  of  Provence,  the  Cam- 
pagna  of  Rome,  or  the  crescent  shores  of  Naples,  some 
place  which  they  have  seen  in  their  travels,  and  whose 
geographical  features  are  ever  in  their  memory,  as 
vividly  as  if  before  their  eyes.  It  all  comes  of  fiiitli, 
of  prayer,  of  spiritual  reading,  of  knowledge  of  the 
lives  of  the  saints,  and  of  the  study  of  theology.  It 
would,  be  strange  and  sad  if  it  were  not  so.  For,  what 
to  us,  either  in  interest  or  importance,  is  the  Avorld  we 
see,  to  the  world  we  do  not  see?  This  devotion  exer- 
cises our  faith  also  in  the  effects  of  the  sacrifice  and 
sacraments,  which  are  things  Ave  do  not  see,  but  which 
we  daily  talk  of  in  reference  to  the  dead  as  undoubted 
and  accomplished  facts.  It  exercises  our  faith  in  the 
communion  of  saints  to  a  degree  which  would  make  it 


408  PURGATORY. 


Bcem  impossible  to  a  heretic  that  he  ever  could  believe 
so  wild  and  extravagant  a  creed.  It  acts  with  regard 
to  indulgences  as  if  they  were  the  most  inevitable  ma- 
terial transactions  of  this  world.  It  knows  of  the  un- 
seen treasure  out  of  which  they  come,  of  the  unseen 
keys  which  open  the  treasury,  of  the  indefinite  juris- 
diction which  places  them  infallibly  at  its  disposal,  of 
God's  unrevealed  acceptance  of  them,  and  of  the  in- 
visible work  they  do,  just  as  it  knows  of  trees  and 
clouds,  of  streets  and  churches — that  is,  just  as  cer- 
tainly and  undoubtingly ;  though  it  often  can  give 
others  no  proof  of  these  things,  nor  account  for  them 
to  itself.  The  difficult  doctrine  of  satisfaction  is  no 
diflficulty  to  the  faith  of  this  devotion.  It  moves  about 
in  it  with  the  greatest  ease,  makes  its  own  arrange- 
ments, transfers  its  satisfactions  hither  and  thither,  turns 
one  in  one  direction,  another  in  another,  making  quite 
sure  of  God  being  agreeable  to  it  all.  The  details  of 
daily  household  life  are  not  ordered  with  more  calm- 
ness and  self-possession  than  are  these  hidden  things 
which  at  every  turn  are  starting  questions  almost  the 
most  diflScult  which  the  understanding  can  find  to 
grapple  with,  or  break  itself  upon.  It  exhibits  the 
same  quiet  faith  in  all  those  Catholic  devotions  which  I 
mentioned  before  as  centring  themselves  in  this  devo- 
tion for  the  dead.  As  the  prophet  and  apostle  say, 
"  My  just  man  liveth  by  faith ;  but  if  he  withdraw  him- 
Belf,  he  shall  not  please  my  soul ;"  and  what  is  faitb 
but  "  the  substance  of  things  to  be  hoped  for,  the  evi- 
dence of  things  that  appear  not?"* 

Neither  is  this  devotion  a  less  heroic  exercise  of  the 

*  Heb.  X.  and  xL 


PURGATORY.  409 


theological  virtue  of  hope,  the  virtue  so  «adly  wanting 
in  the  spiritual  life  of  these  times.  For,  look  what  a 
mighty  edifice  this  devotion  raises  ;  lofty,  intricate, 
and  of  magnificent  proportions,  into  which  somehow 
or  other  all  creation  is  drawn,  from  the  little  headache 
we  suffer  up  to  the  Sacred  Humanity  of  Jesus,  and 
which  has  to  do  even  with  God  Himself.  And  upon 
what  does  all  this  rest,  except  on  a  simple,  childlike 
trust  in  God's  fidelity,  which  is  the  supernatural  mo- 
tive of  hope?  We  hope  for  the  souls  we  help,  and  un- 
bounded are  the  benedictions  which  we  hope  for  in 
their  regard.  We  hope  to  find  mercy  ourselves,  be- 
cause of  our  mercy ;  and  this  hope  quickens  our  efforts 
without  detracting  from  the  merit  of  our  charity.  If 
we  give  away  our  own  satisfactions  and  the  indulgences 
we  gain,  to  the  souls  in  purgatory,  instead  of  keeping 
them  for  ourselves,  what  is  this  but  an  heroic  exercise 
of  hope  ?  We  throw  ourselves  upon  God.  We  hardly 
face  the  thought  that  we  ourselves  are  thus  sentencing 
ourselves,  it  may  be,  to  abide  years  and  years  longer 
in  that  unconquerable  fire.  We  shut  our  eyes,  we  quell 
the  rising  thought,  we  give  our  alms,  and  throw  our- 
selves on  God.  We  shall  not  be  defrauded  of  our  hope. 
Who  ever  trusted  Him,  and  his  trust  failed?  No! 
No  !  All  is  right,  when  it  is  left  to  God.  Then,  again, 
this  devotion  has  to  do  altogether  with  things  beyond 
the  grave,  and  there  is  the  region  of  hope.  Its  dwell- 
ing-place is  behind  the  vail.  "  For  we  are  saved  by 
hope.  But  hope  that  is  seen  is  not  hope.  For,  what  a 
man  seeth,  why  doth  he  hope  for  ?  But  if  we  hope  for 
that  which  we  see  not,  we  wait  for  it  with  patience."* 

*  Rom.  riU. 
35 


410  PURGATORY. 


For  the  state  of  the  dead  is  no  dream,  nor  our  power  to 
help  them  a  dream,  any  more  than  the  purity  of  God  is 
a  dream,  or  the  Precious  Blood  a  dream.  Thus,  though 
there  be  consolations  many,  yet  it  is  we  who  have  "  the 
strongest  comfort,  who  have  fled  for  refuge  to  hold  fast 
the  hope  set  before  us,  which  we  have  as  an  anchor  of 
the  soul,  sure  and  firm,  and  which  entereth  in  even 
within  the  vail,  where  the  forerunner  Jesus  is  entered 
for  us,  made  a  high-priest  for  ever  after  the  order  of 
Melchisedeck."* 

As  to  the  charity  of  this  devotion,  it  dares  to  imitate 
even  the  charity  of  God  Himself.  What  is  there  in 
heaven  or  on  earth  which  it  does  not  embrace,  and  with 
so  much  facility,  with  so  much  gracefulness,  as  if  there 
were  scarcely  an  effort  in  it,  or  as  if  self  was  charmed 
away,  and  might  not  mingle  to  distract  it?  It  is  an 
exercise  of  the  love  of  God,  for  it  is  loving  those  whom 
He  loves,  and  loving  them  because  he  loves  them,  and 
to  augment  His  glory,  and  multiply  His  praise.  There 
are  a  hundred  loves  of  God  in  this  one  love,  as  we 
should  see  if  we  reflected  on  those  Holy  Souls,  and 
realized  all  that  was  implied  in  the  final  entry  of  a  soul 
into  everlasting  bliss.  It  is  love  toward  the  Sacred 
Humanity,  because  it  magnifies  the  copious  Redemp- 
tion of  Jesus.  It  honours  His  merits,  satisfactions, 
ordinances,  and  mysteries.  It  peoples  His  heaven,  and 
it  glorifies  His  Blood.  It  is  filled  with  Jesus,  with  His 
spirit,  with  His  work,  with  His  power,  with  His  vic- 
tories. No  less  is  it  an  exercise  of  love  to  our  dearest 
Lady,  as  I  have  shown  before ;  and  to  the  angels  and 
the  saints.     How  abundant  is  its  charity  to  the  souls 

*  Heb.  vi. 


PURGATORY.  411 


themselves,  who  can  exaggerate,  whether  we  give  them 
the  good  measure  of  all  the  Church  tells  us  to  do,  and 
some  spontaneous  alms  besides  ;  or  the  full  measure 
of  all  our  satisfactions  during  lifetime,  which  are  not 
by  justice  due  elsewhere,  as  St.  Gertrude  gave  them  ; 
or  the  measure  shaken  together,  which  adds  all  that 
shall  be  done  for  us  when  we  are  dead,  like  Father 
Monroy's  heroic  act  of  self-renunciation  ;  or  the  mea- 
sure running  over,  which  heaps  upon  all  the  rest  spe- 
cial works  of  love,  such  as  promoting  this  devotion  by 
conversations,  sermons,  and  books,  and  by  getting 
masses,  communions,  penances,  indulgences,  from  others 
for  them.  All  men  living  on  the  earth,  even  uncon- 
verted sinners,  are  included  in  it,  because  it  swells  the 
Church  Triumphant,  and  so  multiplies  intercessors  for 
us  who  are  still  warring  upon  earth.  To  ourselves 
also  it  is  an  exercise  of  charity,  for  it  gains  us  friends 
in  heaven ;  it  earns  mercy  for  us  when  we  ourselves 
shall  he  in  purgatory,  tranquil  victims,  yet,  oh,  in 
what  distress !  and  it  augments  our  merits  in  the  sight 
of  God,  and  so,  if  only  we  persevere,  our  eternal  re- 
compense hereafter.  Now  if  this  tenderness  for  the 
dead  is  such  an  exercise  of  these  three  theological  vir- 
tues, and  if  again  even  heroic  sanctity  consists  princi- 
pally in  their  exercise,  what  store  ought  we  not  to  set 
upon  this  touching  and  beautiful  devotion ! 

4.  But  a  further  excellence  in  this  devotion  is  to  be 
found  in  its  effects  upon  the  spiritual  life.  It  would 
seem  as  if  it  were  a  devotion  specially  intended  for 
interior  souls.  But  the  fact  is,  that  it  is  so  full  of 
doctrine,  and  embodies  so  much  that  is  supernatural, 
that  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  the  influence  it  exeis 
ciaea  over  the  spiritual  life.     In  the  first  place,  it  is  a 


412  PURGATORY. 


hidden  work  from  first  to  last.  We  do  not  see  the  re- 
sults, so  that  there  is  little  food  for  vain  glory ;  neither 
is  it  a  devotion  the  exercise  of  which  appears  in  any 
way  before  the  eyes  of  others.  It  implies,  moreover, 
an  utter  ignoring  of  self,  by  making  away  with  our 
own  satisfactions  and  indulgences,  and  keeping  up  a 
tender  interest  in  an  object  which  does  not  directly  con- 
cern ourselves.  It  is  not  only  for  the  glory  of  God,  but 
it  is  for  His  greater  glory,  and  for  His  sole  glory.  It 
loads  us  to  think  purely  of  souls,  which  it  is  very 
difficult  to  do  in  this  material  world,  and  to  think  of 
them  too,  simply  as  spouses  of  Jesus.  We  thus  gain  a 
habit  of  mind  which  is  fatal  to  the  spirit  of  the  world 
and  to  the  tyranny  of  human  respect,  while  it  goes  far 
to  counteract  the  poison  of  self-love.  The  incessant 
thought  of  the  Holy  Souls  keeps  before  us  a  continual 
image  of  suffering ;  and  not  of  merely  passive  suffer- 
ing, but  of  a  joyful  conformity  to  the  will  of  God  under 
it.  Yet  this  is  the  very  genius  of  the  Gospel,  the  very 
atmosphere  of  holiness.  Furthermore,  it  communi- 
cates to  us  as  it  were  by  sympathy  the  feelings  of  those 
Holy  Souls,  and  so  increases  our  trembling  yet  trust- 
ful devotion  to  the  adorable  purity  of  God ;  and  as, 
except  in  the  case  of  indulgences  applied  to  the  dead, 
it  requires  a  state  of  grace  to  make  satisfaction  for  the 
sins  of  others,  it  is  a  special  act  of  the  lay-priesthood 
of  the  members  of  Christ.  The  spirit  of  the  devotion 
is  one  of  pensiveness  ;  and  this  is  an  antidote  to  frivolity 
and  hardness,  and  tells  wonderfully  upon  the  affection- 
ate character  which  belongs  to  high  sanctity.  And 
who  can  tell  what  will  come,  after  patient  years,  of 
thus  keeping  constantly  before  our  eyes  a  model  of 
eagerness,  unspeakable,  patient  eagerness,  to  be  with 


PURGATORY.  413 


our  dearest  Lord  ?  Oh,  what  a  wonderful  thing  is  the 
life  of  a  fervent  Catholic!  It  is  almost  omripotent, 
almost  omnipresent ;  because  it  is  not  so  much  he  who 
lives  as  Christ  who  livetli  in  him  !  Oh  what  is  it  we 
are  touching  and  handling  every  day  of  our  lives,  all 
so  full  of  supernatural  vigour,  of  secret  unction,  of 
divine  force,  and  yet  we  consider  not,  but  waste  inten- 
tions and  trifle  time  away  in  the  midst  of  this  stupen- 
dous supernatural  system  of  grace,  as  unreflecting 
almost  as  a  stone  imbedded  in  the  earth  and  borne 
round  unconsciously  in  its  impetuous  revolutions,  day 
by  day. 

It  seems  useless  to  enumerate  the  various  ways  in 
which  we  may  practise  this  devotion.  They  are  suffi- 
ciently known  to  Catholics,  and  to  enter  upon  them  at 
any  length  would  require  a  volume  by  itself.  The 
adorable  Sacrifice  and  indulgences  will  of  course  always 
be  the  principal  means  of  extending  our  charity  to  the 
Departed ;  and  of  indulgenced  devotions  I  propose  to 
speak  at  length  elsewhere.  It  were  to  be  wished  that 
the  beautiful  devotion  of  setting  apart  the  month  of 
November  for  the  Holy  Souls,  in  the  same  way  as  we 
3onsecrate  the  month  of  Mary  to  our  dearest  Lady, 
could  become  naturalized  among  us,  and  of  universal 
)bservance.  There  are  hardly  any  devotions  in  the 
Church  which  so  suit  our  character  and  feelings  in  this 
country,  as  those  for  the  souls  in  purgatory.  Only  in 
all  our  practices  let  us  remember,  1.  what  little  faults 
good  men  will  have  to  expiate,  and  2.  how  long  the 
process  is,  where  there  can  be  no  merit  to  abridge  it 
or  enhance  the  value  of  sufferings. 

But  while  the  selection  of  particular  practices  may 
safely  be  left  to  the  devotion  of  each  one,  something 

85* 


414  PURGATORY. 


should  be  said  of  the  examples  of  the  saints.  On  this 
subject  they  are,  as  might  be  expected,  almost  inex- 
haustible;  neither  am  I  going  to  burden  you  with 
many;  but  I  should  -wish  to  illustrate  and  confirm  the 
foregoing  doctrine  with  the  examples  of  holy  persons. 
The  Dialogues  of  St.  Gregory  the  Great  may  be  consi- 
dered as  the  chief  fountain  of  the  devotion  to  the  Iloiy 
Souls  in  all  succeeding  ages :  and  Father  Peter  Faber 
used  to  say  that  although  St.  Gregory  was  a  Saint  who 
should  be  loved  and  honoured  on  many  accounts,  yet 
on  none  more  than  this,  because  (I  use  his  own  words) 
he  had  so  lucidly  and  transparently  handed  down  to 
us  the  doctrine  of  the  purgatorial  fire.  For  he  thought 
that  if  St.  Gregory  had  not  told  us  so  many  things  of 
the  Holy  Souls,  the  devotion  of  subsequent  ages  would 
have  been  much  colder  in  their  behalf;  and  so,  when 
he  preached  this  devotion  himself,  he  used  to  propa- 
gate along  with  it  a  special  devotion  to  St.  Gregory. 

While  devotions  for  the  dead  have  characterized 
most  of  the  Saints  in  a  very  special  manner;  for  St. 
Thomas  tells  us  that  charity  is  incomplete  until  it  in- 
cludes the  dead  as  well  as  the  living ;  nevertheless, 
there  have  been  certain  holy  persons  whose  lives  seem 
almost  to  have  been  set  aside  by  God,  in  sacrifices  of 
the  most  supernatural  kind  for  the  souls  in  Purgatory. 
Sister  Josefa  de  Santa  Inez,  Augustinianess  of  Beni- 
ganim,  was  one  of  these,  and  Sister  Francesca,of  Pam- 
peluna,  a  Theresian  nun,  was  another.  They  both 
seemed  to  live  for  that  one  object.  They  had  continual 
communications  with  the  departed  souls.  Their  cells 
were  often  filled  with  them.  That  of  Sister  Inez  was 
almost  always  set  apart  as  the  place  of  purgation  for 
several.    And  in  other  respects  also,  the  character  of 


PURGATORY.  415 


the  sanctity  of  these  two  religious  was  exceedingly 
similar.  In  the  subject-matter  of  purgatory  we  may 
with  the  less  scruple  make  use  of  such  revelations, 
from  the  example  of  so  grave  an  authority  as  Cardinal 
Bellarmine  himself,  who,  in  his  treatise  on  purgatory, 
as  I  have  already  said,  adds  always  some  private  reve- 
lations as  a  distinct  head  of  proof.  For  many  rea- 
sons, I  have  preferred  to  take  my  example  from  the 
life  of  Sister  Marie  Denise  de  Martignat,  of  the  Visi- 
tation, who  died  in  the  Convent  at  Annecy,  in  1653 ; 
.and  I  will  not  apologize  for  the  length  of  my  narra- 
tive, because  one  example  exhibited  at  length  will 
illustrate  the  subject  better  than  scores  of  shorter 
anecdotes. 

At  the  time  when  Madlle.  de  Martignat  left  the 
French  court  for  that  of  Charles  Emmanuel  at  Turin, 
there  was  a  lady  living  in  that  capital  who  went  by 
the  name  of  the  Mfere  Ant^e.  She  had  received  a 
special  attraction  from  the  Holy  Ghost  to  devote  her- 
self to  the  service  of  the  souls  in  purgatory.  She 
had  now  spent  many  years  in  this  way,  and  forming 
an  acquaintance  with  Madlle.  de  Martign  at,  she  had 
obtained  from  God  by  her  prayers,  that  Marie  Denise 
should  succeed  her  in  her  high  office  ;  and  in  fact  her 
soul  was  the  first  which  Marie  Denise  ever  saw,  com- 
ing out  of  Purgatory  after  a  detention  of  five  hours 
there  for  not  following  inspirations  she  had  had  about 
certain  good  works.  The  M^i.^  Ant6e  had  told  her  she 
was  ultimately  to  be  a  nun,  as  St.  Francis  of  Sales 
had  also  hinted  to  her  at  Paris  years  before,  and  in  due 
time  it  was  arranged  that  she  should  join  the  convent 
of  the  Visitation  at  Annecy.  She  was  accompanied  on 
her  journey  by  a  multitude  of  the  Holy  Souls,  whose 


416  PURGATORY. 


presence  was  so  sensible  to  her  that  she  never  perceiv> 
ed  the  passage  of  the  Mont  Cenis,  so  absorbed  was  she 
in  her  intercourse  with  them.  At  the  prayers  of  the 
M^re  Antee,  Marie  Denise  had  received  a  powerful 
and  mysterious  grace,  while  praying  before  the  Holy 
Winding  Sheet  at  Turin,  by  which  she  had  immense 
power  over  the  souls  in  purgatory;  and  all  her  first 
years  in  Annecy  were  filled  with  practices  on  their 
behalf.  They  disclosed  many  things  to  her ;  as,  for 
example,  when  she  was  infirmarian  they  told  her  there 
was  no  place  where  there  were  so  many  devils,  or 
where  they  were  so  active,  as  in  an  infirmary,  because 
it  is  there  that  the  soul  fights  its  last  battle  for  eter- 
nity. 

She  was  continually  accompanied  by  them,  and  their 
presence  was  sensible  to  her.  She  told  the  Superioress 
that  so  far  from  being  afraid,  she  was  as  much  at  her 
ease  amid  a  troop  of  these  souls  as  when  with  her  sis- 
ters in  community  ;  and  that  she  found  more  profit  for 
her  soul  in  conversation  with  them  than  with  the  liv- 
ing. She  obtained  as  many  indulgenced  medals  as  she 
could,  and  at  recreation  she  was  always  eloquently 
preaching  this  her  favourite  devotion.  Her  Superioress 
once  expressed  a  wish  to  be  visited  by  a  soul  from  pur- 
gatory, if  the  visit  would  make  her  more  humble 
and  more  acceptable  to  God.  Marie  Denise  replied, 
"  Truly,  my  dear  mother,  if  such  is  your  courage  and 
your  desire,  let  us  pray  our  Lord  to  grant  it  you." 
The  Superioress  having  consented,  she  was  asto- 
nished that  same  evening  at  receiving  a  mysterious 
sign  from  a  suffering  soul,  who  from  that  moment 
became  her  frequent  visitor.  Several  of  the  com- 
munity   slept  in  the  Superioress's   room,   and   were 


PURGATORY.  417 


eye  and  ear  witnesses  of  these  visits :  and  this  conti- 
nued for  seven  entire  months.  At  the  end  of  this  time, 
Marie  Denise  told  the  Superioress  that  the  continuance 
in  the  pains  of  purgatory,  of  such  a  soul  as  the  one  who 
had  visited  her,  would  teach  her  how  much  longer 
souls  are  detained  in  that  suffering  than  she  had  sup- 
posed before  ;  and  this  for  four  reasons  ;  first,  because 
of  the  inconceivable  purity  which  the  soul  must  have 
before  it  can  present  itself  before  Him  who  is  essential 
sanctity  and  purity,  and  who  receives  no  one  into  Hiss 
glorious  city  who  is  not  as  pure  as  the  city  itself.  Se- 
condly, because  of  the  innumerable  multitude  of  venial 
faults  which  we  commit  in  this  life,  and  the  little  pe- 
nance which  we  do  for  the  mortal  sins  we  have  confessed. 
Thirdly,  because  of  the  inability  of  these  souls  to  help 
themselves ;  and,  fourthly,  because  of  the  lukewarm- 
ness  and  negligence  of  the  greater  part  of  Christians 
in  praying  and  doing  good  works  for  these  souls,  as 
the  dead  fade  from  the  memory  of  the  living  almost 
as  soon  as  they  have  vanished  from  their  eyes  ;  while 
true  charity  will  follow  those  it  loves,  through  the 
flames  of  purgatory  till  the  joys  of  Paradise. 

The  feast  of  our  Lady  of  Angels  was  a  day  on  which 
Marie  Denise  generally  obtained  the  liberation  of  many 
souls  from  purgatory.  Once  after  communion  on  that 
day,  she  felt  a  strong  interior  movement,  as  if  our  Lord 
was  taking  her  soul  out  of  her  body,  and  leading  her  to 
the  shore  of  purgatory.  There  He  pointed  out  to  her 
the  soul  of  a  powerful  prince  who  had  been  killed  in  a 
duel,  but  to  whom  God  had  given  the  grace  to  make  an 
act  of  contrition  before  he  breathed  his  last ;  and  she 
was  ordered  to  pray  for  Him  especially.  She  did  this 
for  nine  years  and  three  months,  and  even  gave  her 
2C 


418  PURGATORY. 


life  in  sacrifice  for  his  soul,  and  yet  he  was  not  freed. 
She  was  so  overcome  by  this  vision  of  his  soul,  that  the 
Superioress  perceived  that  something  extraordinary 
had  happened  to  her.  She  related  the  vision,  and 
added,  "  Yes,  my  dear  mother !  I  have  seen  that  soul  in 
purgatory ;  but,  alas  !  who  shall  deliver  it  ?  Perhaps 
it  will  not  come  out  till  the  day  of  judgment.  Oh,  my 
mother  V  she  continued,  weeping,  *'  how  good  is  God 
in  His  justice !  How  has  this  prince  followed  the 
spirit  of  the  world  and  the  lights  of  the  flesh  !  How 
little  anxiety  has  he  had  for  his  soul,  and  how  little  de- 
votion in  the  use  of  the  sacraments !"  The  effect  of  this 
vision,  and  of  her  penances  for  this  soul,  had  such  an 
effect  on  her  bodily  health,  that  the  Superioress  re- 
monstrated with  her  on  the  subject ;  but  she  replied, 
that  she  must  now  suffer  incessantly,  as  she  had  of- 
fered herself  to  God  in  order  to  procure  some  allevia- 
tion of  pain  for  that  poor  soul.  "And  yet,  my  dear 
mother,  I  am  not  so  much  moved  at  the  lamentable 
state  of  suffering  in  which  I  have  seen  his  soul,  as  I 
am  struck  with  wonder  at  the  blessed  moment  of  grace 
which  accomplished  his  salvation.  That  happy  instant 
seems  to  me  an  outflow  of  the  infinity  of  God's  good- 
ness, sweetness,  and  love.  The  action  in  which  he 
died,  deserved  hell.  It  was  no  attention  to  God  on  his 
own  part  which  won  from  heaven  that  precious  moment 
of  grace.  It  was  an  effect  of  the  communion  of  saints, 
by  the  participation  which  he  had  in  the  prayers  that 
were  made  for  him.  The  Divine  Omnipotence  lovingly 
allowed  itself  to  be  turned  by  some  good  soul,  and  in 
that  grace  acted  beyond  its  wont.  Ah !  my  dear 
mother  !  henceforth  we  must  teach  all  the  world  to  beg 
of  God,  our  Blessed  Lady,  and  the  saints,  that  final  in- 


PURGATORY.  'U9 


Btant  of  grace  and  mercy  for  the  hour  of  death,  and 
also  to  pave  the  way  for  it  by  good  works ;  because 
though  our  Lord  may  sometimes  derogate  from  His 
ordinary  providence,  we  must  never  presume  on  that 
privilege  in  our  own  case.  There  were  many  fights  in 
Israel,  but  the  sun  never  stood  still  except  for  Josue, 
nor  went  back  except  for  Ezekias.  A  million  souls 
have  been  lost  in  the  very  action  in  which  the  prince 
was  saved.  He  had  but  one  instant  of  life  in  the  free  pos- 
session of  his  mind,  in  order  to  co-operate  with  the  pre- 
cious moment  of  grace  ;  that  moment  inspired  him  with 
a  real  contrition,  which  enabled  him  to  make  an  act  of 
true  final  repentance."  The  Superioress  objecting  to 
this  view,  the  good  sister  answered,  "  My  dear  mother ! 
as  the  prince  had  not  lost  the  faith,  he  was  like  a  match 
ready  to  take  fire ;  so  that  when  the  spark  of  merciful 
grace  touched  the  Christian  centre  of  his  soul,  the  fire 
of  charity  was  kindled,  and  brought  forth  a  saving  act. 
God  made  use  of  the  instinct  which  Ave  naturally  have 
to  invoke  our  First  Cause,  when  we  are  in  urgent  peril 
of  losing  the  life  which  we  hold  from  Him  ;  and  thus 
He  touched  the  prince,  and  drew  him  to  have  recourse 
to  efficacious  grace.  Divine  grace  is  more  active  than 
we  can  even  conceive.  We  cannot  wink  our  eyes  as 
quickly  as  God  can  do  His  work  in  the  soul  where  He 
seeks  co-operation ;  and  the  moment  in  which  the  soul 
makes  its  act  of  co-operation  with  grace  is  almost  as 
brief  as  the  one  in  which  it  receives  it ;  and  in  this  the 
soul  experiences  how  admirably  it  has  been  created  in 
the  image  and  likeness  of  God."  The  Superioress  see- 
ing into  what  mysterious  depths  Marie  Denise  was 
about  to  plunge,  interrupted  her  by  remarking,  that 
God  had  busied  Himself  forty  years  with  the  children 


420  PURGATORY. 


of  Israel,  and  even  then  they  were  not  converted  from 
their  evil  ways.  True,  my  dear  mother,  replied  the 
sister,  but  then  He  swore  in  His  wrath  that  His  har- 
dened people  should  not  enter  into  His  rest.  Victori- 
ous grace  only  required  a  moment  to  strike  down  St. 
Paul,  and  to  triumph  over  his  heart.  The  judgments 
and  conduct  of  God  are  abysses,  which  it  does  not  be- 
long to  us  to  fathom ;  but  of  one  thing  I  can  assure  you, 
that  if  it  had  not  been  for  that  one  blessed  moment  of 
grace,  the  soul  of  the  prince  would  have  descended  into 
the  lowest  hell ;  and  since  the  devil  has  been  a  devil, 
he  has,  perhaps,  never  been  more  disappointed  in  his 
expectation  than  in  losing  that  prey.  For  he  had 
known  nothing  of  the  interior  occupation  of  his  victim 
in  those  few  seconds  which  the  Divine  Goodness  ac- 
corded him  after  his  mortal  wound." 

Language  almost  fails  to  describe  the  suflferings  both 
of  mind  and  body  which  Mary  Denise  went  through 
for  the  alleviation  of  this  soul.  Mfere  de  Chaugy  de- 
votes a  whole  chapter  to  them,  and  they  are  quite  equal 
to  those  which  are  read  of  any  of  the  saints.  After  a 
long  martyrdom  of  this  kind,  it  pleased  God  that  she 
should  see  in  a  vision  the  suffering  soul  of  the  prince, 
slightly  raised  above  the  bottom  of  the  burning  abyss, 
and  in  a  capacity  of  being  delivered  somewhat  before 
the  day  of  judgment,  and  also  that  an  abbreviation  of 
some  few  hours  of  his  purgatory  had  been  granted.  She 
begged  Mother  de  Chatel  to  pray  for  him ;  and  that 
good  mother,  consenting  to  do  so,  could  not  refrain  from 
expressing  her  surprise  that  Marie  Denise  had  only 
spoken  of  an  abridgment  of  a  few  hours ;  but  the  sister 
replied,  "  Ah !  my  mother,  it  is  a  great  thing  that  the 
Divine  Mercy  has  begun  to  allow  itself  to  be  influenced , 


rUROATORY.  421 


time  has  not  the  same  measure  in  the  other  life  which 
it  has  in  this  ;  years  of  sadness,  weariness,  poverty, 
and  severe  illnesses  in  this  world  are  not  to  be  compared 
with  the  one  single  hour  of  the  sufferings  of  the  poor 
soula  in  purgatory  \"  It  would  take  me  too  long  to  re- 
late all  the  communications  our  Lord  vouchsafed  to 
make  to  her  about  the  state  of  that  soul.  It  came  at 
last  to  this,  that  she  offered  her  life  for  his  simple  alle- 
viation, not  deliverance,  and  it  was  accepted.  Not  long 
before  her  death,  when  the  superioress  was  expressing 
herself  to  the  effect  that  surely  by  this  time  the  soul 
was  free,  Marie  Denise  said,  with  great  warmth,  "  0 
mother !  many  years  and  many  suffrages  are  needed 
yet ;"  and  at  last  she  died,  and  yet  there  was  no  word 
that  the  prince  was  delivered  even  by  that  heroic  sacrifice 
crowning  upward  of  nine  years  of  suffering,  prayers, 
masses,  communions,  and  indulgences,  not  on  her  part 
only,  but  through  her  on  the  part  of  many  others  also. 
What  a  long  commentary  might  be  written  upon  all 
this  !  But  hearts  that  love  God  will  comment  on  it  for 
themselves.  Blessed  be  His  most  glorious  Majesty  for 
its  insatiable  purity. 

One  word  more.  Among  the  sorrows  of  kind  hearts 
there  is  one  which  seems  as  if  it  grew  greater  in  each 
succeeding  generation  of  the  world.  It  is  the  enormous 
growth  of  poverty  and  wretchedness,  and  our  own  in- 
ability to  relieve  it.  There  is  hardly  one  among  us 
who  has  not  felt  this.  So  overwhelming  is  the  misery, 
that  those  who  have  little  to  give  feel  the  pain  as  much 
as  those  who  have  nothing,  and  those  who  have  much 
io  give  almost  more.  For  giving  opens  a  man's  heart, 
and  makes  him  love  to  give,  and  those  who  have  more 
to  give  Inow  best  how  little  it  is  compared  with  the 


422  PURGATORY. 


necessity.  Yet,  this  yearning  to  give  alms  comes  from 
the  Sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  and  it  must  be  satisfied ; 
and  how  can  we  better  satisfy  it  than  by  giving  alms  to 
those  who  need  it  most,  the  Holy  Souls  in  Purgatory? 
And  we  can  all  do  this.  And  how  much  might  we  do, 
even  for  our  dear  poor  on  earth,  if  we  commended  their 
cause  to  the  souls  whom  God  allows  us  to  liberate,  and 
made  a  sweet  bargain  with  them  that  when  once  in  the 
free  air  of  heaven,  their  first  homage  and  salutation 
over,  they  should  pray  for  an  abundant  outpouring  of 
grace  upon  rich  men,  that  their  hearts  might  be  opened 
like  the  hearts  of  the  first  Christians,  to  deny  them- 
selves, and  to  feast  the  poor  of  Christ  ? 

This  doctrine  of  purgatory,  and  the  marvellous  powers 
put  into  the  hands  of  devotion  for  the  Holy  Souls,  prove 
more  than  any  thing  else  how  God  has  contrived  all 
things  for  love,  all  things  to  show  love  of  us,  all  things 
to  win  for  Himself  His  creatures'  love.  No  less  does 
the  neglect  of  this  devotion  illustrate  the  ingratitude 
and  waywardness  with  which  we  repay  God's  love,  and 
which  is  as  wonderful  as  that  love  itself.  How  touch- 
ingly  beautiful  was  the  description  which  God  vouch- 
safed to  give  of  Himself,  and  His  pursuit  of  souls,  to 
St.  Gertrude!  "  Just  as  a  poor  invalid,"  said  He,  "  who 
cannot  walk,  having  with  diflSculty  got  himself  carried 
into  the  sunshine,  to  be  a  little  cheered  by  the  warmth, 
sees  a  storm  come  on  suddenly,  and  has  to  wait,  patient 
but  disappointed,  for  bright  skies  again, — so  am  I. 
My  love  for  you  conquers  Me,  and  compels  Me  to  choose 
to  dwell  with  you  amid  the  violent  tempest  of  your 
sins,  hoping  for  the  calm  of  your  amendment,  and  for 
the  quiet  harbour  of  your  humility  at  last."  Well 
may  we  cry  out  with  St.  Catherine  of  Genoa,  *'  0  Lord  I 


PURGATORY.  423 


if  I  could  but  know  the  cause  of  Thy  so  great  and  pure 
love  of  rational  creatures !  But  our  Lord  answered 
her,  "My  love  is  infinite,  and  I  cannot  help  loving 
what  I  have  created.  The  cause  of  My  love  is  nothing 
hut  love  itself;  and  seeing  you  cannot  understand  it, 
be  at  peace ;  and  do  not  seek  what  you  will  never 
find!  Whereupon  the  saint  exclaimed,  "OLove!  he 
who  feels  you  understands  you  not,  and  he  who  wishes 
to  understand  you  cannot  know  you  '/' 

I  should  only  be  repeating  what  I  have  already  said 
elsewhere,  if  I  were  to  draw  out  in  detail  the  various 
ways  in  which  this  devotion  promotes  our  three  ends, 
the  glory  of  God,  the  interests  of  Jesus,  and  the  salva- 
tion of  souls.  In  fact,  the  peculiarity  of  this  devotion 
is  its  fulness.  It  is  all  quickened  with  supernatural 
life  and  power.  It  teems  with  doctrine.  It  reaches 
everywhere,  and  has  to  do  with  every  thing.  We  are 
always  touching  some  hidden  spring  in  it,  which  goes 
further  than  we  intended,  and  eflfects  more  than  we 
hoped.  It  is  as  if  all  the  threads  of  God's  glory  were 
gathered  up  into  it  and  fastened  there,  and  that  when 
one  is  touched,  all  vibrate,  and  make  melody  to  God, 
part  of  that  sweet  song  which  the  Sacred  Human 
Heart  of  Jesus  is  singing  ever,  in  the  Bosom  of  the 
most  compassionate  Trinity. 


A  LETTER 


OF   THE 


BY 

F.  \Y.  FABER.  PRIEST  OF  THE  ORATORY. 


My  Dear  Friends: 
1.  The  Confraternity  of  the  Most  Precious  Blood 
of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  established  in 
the  Chapel  of  the  London  Oratory,  now  numbers  not 
far  from  seven  thousand  members.  Tlie  time,  there- 
fore, is  passed,  when  the  Director  of  the  Confraternity 
could  meet  the  few  hundreds  who  then  composed  it,  at 
the  Friday  evening  gatherings  at  the  Oratory  ;  though 
it  will  not  be  easy  to  forget  the  fervour  and  joy  which 
reigned  at  those  unions,  or  the  manner  in  which  the 
whole  assembly  joined  aloud  in  the  prayers  for  the 
intentions  of  the  Confraternity.  It  seems  then  natural 
that  I  should  now  address  a  few  words  to  the  Members 
in  a  way  which  may  reach  them  all,  lest  as  we  extend 
more  widely,  we  should  forget  the  first  spirit  of  our 
institute,  and  lose  in  zeal  what  we  gain  in  numbers. 
Our  simple  object  is  to  make  our  dearest  Lord  better 

36*  425 


426  A   LETTER. 


known  and  better  loved ;  to  have  His  Precious  Blood 
worshipped  with  a  more  tender,  affectionate,  and 
thankful  adoration ;  and  to  unite  ourselves  to  the 
intentions  of  His  Sacred  Heart,  the  Fountain  of  that 
Blood,  for  the  conversion  of  perishing  sinners.  Allow 
me,  then,  my  dear  friends  and  fellow-labourers,  to  say 
a  few  words  to  you  in  all  love,  to  quicken  your  zeal  and 
fervour,  and  to  keep  you  true  to  one  idea  with  which 
we  were  all  unanimously  possessed  in  the  beginning  of 
our  undertaking. 

2.  The  original  idea  of  the  Confraternity  was,  that 
it  should  be  exclusively  an  association  of  prayer.  No 
money  collections  were  to  be  made  in  connection  with 
it.  No  committees,  or  sub-committees,  or  collectors 
were  to  be  necessary  or  even  possible  in  it.  No  exter- 
nal work  of  charity  or  benevolence  was  to  be  grafted 
upon  it.  For  all  these  good  ends  there  are  already 
Bocieties  and  confraternities,  all  of  which  may  God 
abundantly  bless  and  prosper  !  But  we  were  to  keep 
to  prayer;  we  were  to  have  an  exclusively  spiritual 
end,  and  we  were  jealously  to  exclude  all  other  ends, 
lest  they  should  at  last  come  to  swallow  up  our  one 
solitary  but  dearly  cherished  practice  of  intercessory 
prayer.  To  introduce  other  practices  into  the  Confra- 
ternity will  be,  not  to  extend  its  usefulness,  but  to  de- 
stroy its  primitive  idea.  I  beg  of  you  to  keep  close 
to  this.  Value  nothing  in  the  Confraternity  so  much 
as  its  simplicity,  its  undivided  attention  to  the  spirit  of 
intercession  and  prayer.  Thus  you  will  avoid  trespass- 
ing on  the  ground  already  well  occupied  by  other  holy 
Confraternities :  you  will  keep  clear  of  the  little  trou- 
bles and  disquiets  which  the  collecting  of  money  even 
for  pious  purposes  is  sure  to  bring  about ;  and  you  will 


A    LETTER.  427 


t)t  free  also  of  the  distractions  which  external  works 
of  active  charity  must  necessarily  gather  round  you. 
Confraternities  established  for  these  ends  have  their 
special  benediction,  that  these  things  should  not  harm 
them.  We,  remember,  are  blessed  simply  as  an  asso- 
ciation of  intercessory  prayer.  This  is  our  work,  our 
life,  our  specialty,  our  power. 

3.  The  first  practice  which  we  took  upon  ourselves 
in  our  Friday  meetings  in  London,  was  an  engagement 
to  choose  three  souls  ;  first  and  foremost,  some  bad, 
non-practising  Catholic;  secondly,  some  heretic  or 
unbeliever ;  and  thirdly,  some  soul  in  purgatory  :  and 
to  let  the  mercy  of  God  have  no  rest  from  our  importu- 
nity until  He  had  answered  our  prayers,  brought  our 
bad  Catholic  to  the  Sacraments,  and  converted  our 
unbeliever.  We  add  to  these  two  some  soul  in  purga- 
tory, in  order  that  we  might  not  lose  heart,  and  inter- 
mit our  prayers,  if,  for  our  sins  or  in  His  secret  judg- 
ments, the  Most  High  delayed  or  refused  our  petitions 
in  the  other  cases ;  for  we  knew  that  our  prayers  for 
the  Holy  souls,  delayed  from  the  vision  of  God,  would, 
if  not  infallibly,  yet  more  readily  be  heard  ;  for  they, 
true  spouses  of  Jesus,  could  themselves  put  no  obstacle 
in  the  way.  This  was  our  first  practice,  and  it  cm- 
bodied  the  whole  spirit  of  our  Confraternity. 

4.  Why  should  we  so  greatly  value  and  esteem  this 
spirit  and  this  practice?  Because,  dear  brethren,  God 
has  so  remarkably  blessed  them.  It  is  a  very  solemn 
thing  to  receive  a  special  blessing  from  Almighty  God. 
It  is  almost  a  frightening  thing  when  He  opens  heaven 
and  lots  the  light  of  His  loving-kindnoss  shine  visibly 
upon  ourselves  ;  it  is  frightening,  from  the  very  great- 
ness of  the  consolation,  and  from  the  opposite  conside- 


428  A   LETTER. 


ration  of  our  own  unspeakable  unworthiness.  I  assure 
you  I  have  sometimes  felt  quite  nervous,  as  week  after 
week  we  were  called  upon  to  read,  at  the  Friday  meet- 
ings, the  numerous  letters  recording  the  wonderful 
and  speedy  answers  which  God  had  vouchsafed  to  our 
prayers.  They  who  have  been  in  the  habit  of  attending 
those  meetings  know  well  how  seldom  it  is  that  a  week 
passes  over  wathout  some  letter  of  this  sort ;  and  more 
often  they  range  from  six  to  a  dozen.  A  Protestant 
lady  who  has  been  kind  to  Catholics  in  these  unkind 
days,  but  who  never  exhibited  any  other  leaning 
toward  our  holy  religion,  is  prayed  for  at  the  Confra- 
ternity at  the  request  of  one  whom  she  has  benefited. 
This  is  on  the  Friday  evening ;  on  the  Sunday  after- 
noon she  sends  for  a  priest  to  her  sick-bed,  and  is  re- 
conciled to  God.  Again — a  niece  requests  the  prayers 
of  the  Confraternity  for  a  sick  aunt,  who  is  lying 
insensible  at  the  time.  Shortly  she  awakens  from  her 
insensibility,  asks  for  a  priest,  and  has  no  sooner 
received  the  Sacraments  than  she  becomes  insensible 
again.  These  are  but  specimens  of  a  large  class  of 
graces  accorded  to  the  prayers  of  the  Confraternity ; 
and  it  is  observable,  as  if  in  sanction  of  the  spirit  with 
which  we  started,  that  by  far  the  greater  proportion  of 
them  are  cases  of  the  conversions  of  bad  Catholics. 
Surely  we  ought  to  lay  these  things  up  in  our  hearts, 
and  show  our  gratitude  to  God  by  increased  diligence 
in  a  more  joyful  perseverance  in  prayer.  Again  I  say, 
Let  us  be  true  to  our  first  idea,  and  who  shall  say 
where  the  outpourings  of  God's  mercies  may  end? 
Let  us  ask  more  and  we  shall  receive  more.  Let  us  be 
bold  in  prayer,  knowing  assuredly  that  what  we  ask  is 
nothing  else  than   the  burning  desire  of  the  loving 


A  M-ynEK.  42\t 


heart  of  Jesus   Himself,  the  conversion  of  sinpers  foi 
whom  He  shed  His  precious  Blood. 

5.  Some  Branch  Associations  of  our  Confraternity 
have  been  established  by  several  parish  priests  in  their 
parishes.  Nothing  is  necessary,  in  order  that  the  mem 
bers  of  these  should  enjoy  the  indulgences  granted  to 
our  Confraternity,  but  that  the  names  of  the  members 
should  be  sent  here  for  enrolment.  It  is  very  much  to 
be  desired  that  the  members  of  such  associations  should 
keep  true  to  the  end  of  the  institute,  and  so  not  in  any 
•way  interfere  with  the  operation  of  other  confraterni- 
ties in  their  parish,  that  they  may  rather  be  a  bond  of 
peace  than  even  a  possible  and  innocent  occasion  of  dis- 
union. It  need  hardly  be  said  that  in  such  associations 
all  the  good  works  of  the  parish,  and  the  intentions  of 
the  pastor,  should  be  always  included  in  the  intentions 
of  the  prayers,  as  well  as  local  scandals,  if  there  be 
any.  Neither  should  members  of  the  Confraternity 
meet  together  at  all  without  the  knowledge  and  sanc- 
tion of  their  pastors ;  but  they  should  be  not  only 
ready,  but  anxious,  to  receive  his  suggestions,  to  put 
away  their  own  lights  for  his,  and  go  his  road  rather 
than  their  own.  The  prayers  of  the  self-willed  can 
have  no  benediction,  except  when  grace  moves  such 
men  to  pray  for  their  own  conversion. 

6.  As  some  inquiries  have  been  made  as  to  the 
prayers  used  at  the  Friday  meetings  in  London,  it  may 
be  well  to  mention  them  here,  not  of  course  as  a  rule 
to  others,  but  as  a  suggestion.  We  begin  our  meet- 
ings with  the  hymn  "  Daily,  daily,"  p.  85  of  the  Ora- 
tory Hymn  Book :  then  follow  the  indulgenced  offer 
ings  of  the  Precious  Blood,  p.  27  of  the  Confraternity 
Book;  the  notices,  letters,  requests  for  prayers  and 


430  A   LETTER. 


thanksgivings  are  then  read,  and  these  occupy  some- 
times a  quarter  of  an  hour.  After  this,  seven  Our  Fa- 
thers and  seven  Hail  Maries  are  said  by  the  whole  as- 
sembly for  the  intentions  just  read,  each  Our  Father 
and  Hail  Mary  being  prefaced  by  the  words,  "  In  ho- 
nour of  the  (First,  Soiond,  &c.)  Blood  Shedding."  Ano- 
ther hymn  is  then  sung ;  St.  Philip's  Converts,  p.  95, 
or  Hail,  Holy  Joseph,  p.  35  of  our  Hymn  Book.  Then 
follows  the  sermon,  on  some  subject  connected  with  the 
Precious  Blood,  the  mysteries  of  Jesus  and  Mary,  the 
conversion  of  sinners,  or  an  account  of  some  famous 
confraternity  or  work  of  charity  in  Catholic  countries, 
or  some  intelligence  about  the  labours  of  missionaries, 
and  the  propagation  of  the  faith.  At  the  conclusion  of 
the  Sermon,  the  Hymn  of  the  Precious  Blood,  p.  18,  is 
sung,  and  the  meeting  concludes  with  one  Our  Father 
and  Hail  Mary  for  the  sick,  sorrowing,  and  absent 
members  of  the  Confraternity.  These  meetings  have 
been  found,  not  only  to  keep  up  the  spirit  and  fervonr 
of  the  members,  but  to  have  been  greatly  blessed  to 
their  own  sanctification  and  more  frequent  attendance 
on  the  sacraments.  We  have  learned  to  value  them 
very  greatly  as  seasons  of  more  than  common  grace. 

7.  And  now  having  pointed  out,  to  you  especially 
who  reside  at  a  distance,  what  was  the  spirit  and  idea 
of  our  Confraternity  at  first,  I  may  be  allowed,  dear 
brethren,  to  recommend  an  object  to  your  notice,  and 
for  your  future  prayers,  which  I  have  long  had  greatly 
at  heart.  The  Adorable  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  is  the 
life  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  the  benediction  of  the 
Blessed  Sacrament  is  the  earthly  paradise  of  all  her 
loving  Children.  Yet  whose  heart,  if  he  but  loves  God, 
does  not  bleed  over  the  sad  ingratitude  of  men  in  these 


A   LETTER.  ^  431 


respects?  AVhat  multitudes  of  poor  CathDlics  are 
there  among  us  who  do  not  hear  Mass  even  on  days  of 
obligation !  What  multitudes  that  hear  it  inattentively 
and  indevoutly  !  What  multitudes  that  for  the  least 
pretext  stay  away  from  benediction,  because  it  is  not 
of  precept  I  Now,  let  us  suppose  that  the  seven  thou- 
sand members  of  the  Confraternity  give  themselves  up 
to  this  work  ;  let  them  besiege  heaven  with  their  pray- 
ers ;  let  them  remember  it  at  mass,  at  communion,  at 
rosary,  at  benediction,  at  examen  of  conscience,  always 
and  everywhere.  Oh  my  dear  friends  !  from  what  we 
know  of  God,  and  have  experienced  of  His  bound- 
less compassion,  is  it  an  extravagance  to  believe 
that  each  member  of  the  Confraternity  may,  by  his 
prayers,  at  least  win  seven  who  now  neglect  to  come  to 
mass,  and  that  within  a  year  ?  And  if  so,  what  a  work 
is  this, — seven  times  seven  thousand  worshippers 
brought  back  to  the  foot  of  the  altars  of  the  Church  ! 
It  is  impossible  to  overrate  the  importance  of  this  work. 
Those  whose  toil  lies  in  the  deep  places  of  the  Church, 
the  crowded  haunts  of  the  English  and  Irish  poor,  know 
well,  that  in  the  Adorable  Sacrifice  is  their  only  power ; 
and  that,  if  the  people  could  be  brought  within  the 
blessed  sound  of  the  mass-bell,  the  great  work  of  con- 
version would  be  as  good  as  done.  Once  more — why 
should  not  you,  children  and  worshippers  of  the  Pre- 
cious Blood !  take  this  object  upon  yourselves  as  a  great 
end  of  your  prayers?  You  will  pray:  and  God  will 
touch  the  hearts  of  the  neglectful,  or  lie  will  raise  up 
Confraternities  and  bands  of  visitors  to  go  out  and  com- 
pel the  people  with  an  affectionate  compulsion  to  como 
to  this  Blessed  Sacrifice,  or  He  will  send  missions  here 
tind  there  that  shall  do  the  work.     You  have  simply  to 


432  A    LETTER. 


give  yourselves  to  prayer.  Meditate  on  this,  and 
see  if  it  be  not  an  object  worthy  of  your  chief  atten- 
tion as  members  of  the  Confraternity.  The  Saints  of 
God  would  have  wept  tears  of  holy  bitterness  over  the 
multitudes  who  now  neglect  the  Adorable  Sacrifice  of 
the  Mass. 

8.  But  if  we  are  to  pray  for  others,  we  must  first  sanc- 
tify ourselves.  If  we  are  to  make  Jesus  better  known 
and  better  loved  among  men,  we  must  know  Him  well, 
and  love  Ilim  ardently  ourselves.  If  we  are  to  spread 
devotion  to  the  Precious  Blood,  and  bring  many  souls 
into  its  healing  streams,  it  must  be  with  our  own  souls 
ever  glistening  with  fresh  drops  of  constantly  frequent- 
ed Sacraments.  My  dear  Brothers  and  Sisters  !  If 
you  think  what  we  are,  and  what  God  is,  you  will  see 
that  it  is  a  solemn  thing  that  has  happened  to  you  in 
the  wonderful,  and  still  more,  (for  it  is  not  God's  com- 
mon way,)  the  quick  answers  to  your  prayers.  God  has 
not  made  use  of  you  for  nothing.  He  has  but  blessed 
you  to-day  that  He  may  more  abundantly  bless  you  to- 
morrow. We  have  found  a  vein  of  gold  in  the  Church 
of  God :  these  early  benedictions  are,  depend  upon  it, 
but  the  first  fruits  of  what  is  yet  to  come,  if  we  continue 
but  to  toil,  with  the  utmost  humility,  and  the  lowliest 
opinion  of  ourselves,  yet,  with  such  bold  confidence  as 
humility  alone  can  give,  in  this  little  vineyard  of  the 
Confraternity  of  the  Precious  Blood. 

F.  W.  Faber, 

Priest  of  the  Oratory  and  Director  of  the  Confraternity. 

The  London  Oratory, 
Feast  of  St.  Ursula,  1853. 

TILE  END. 


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